21 GUNs
by Lordoftheghostking28
Summary: A cure against death malfunctioned...bringing death in the form of mindless creatures. Now GUN has two things on their mind; stopping this virus and bringing the Ultimate Life Form down once and for all because of what he's done.
1. Chapter 1

** …Wow. **

** Looks like ****The Undead**** got a lot of hits.**

** Because of this…I'll celebrate with another zombie story! (Also I just watched Zombieland…Heh, Twinkies…) That movie **_**sucked, **_**wasn't very funny, but the action was good…**

** Anyway, yeah…another zombie thing…although it has nothing to do with ****The Undead****. It's a completely different story. Hope you enjoy. The title came from Greenday's song, 21 Guns and I like the song a lot, so a shout out to them. **_**Rated M for blood, gore, language, drinking and things like that.**_

__**XxXxXxXx**

The Commander walked down deserted halls. It had been that way for nearly fifty years, after the Incident. His footsteps echoed around the room, reverberating off the walls and floor, creating an eerie sound. He was headed for possibly the only populated room on the entire abandoned space colony. He and his trusted group of generals and soldiers would prepare a plan to capture one of the most wanted.

An automatic door slid open to a small room, where a blank gray door was mounted on the opposite wall. This one demanded identification.

The Commander flashed an ID in front of the scanner and proceeded on into the conference room, where his colleagues were waiting.

"Good evening, gentlemen."

A few of the higher ranking generals stood and saluted. "Sir!"

"At ease,"

The Commander sat at the head of the table in his personal leather chair. He eyed the group of people staring at him and said, "Proceed. What have you got so far?"

"Just ideas, sir." A scientist said. He adjusted his large glasses on his nose. "Although…we can see no way in which most of these would work."

"Let's see what you've got."

The scientist shuffled some papers around and then spoke. "A trap of some kind," he said. "some trap that won't necessarily kill him, but would wound him enough so he can't escape."

"How would you design this?" The Commander asked, folding his hands together and leaning forward towards the table.

"Maybe an abandoned building…we can send some of our best troops in when he enters. Some armed with bullets and some armed with tranquilizers."

"We've tried that, and look what happened." The Commander rested his elbows on the table and massaged his brow. "We've got more than a hundred deaths accounted for, some of them innocents, like the professor's granddaughter."

Silence covered the room. A few of the older scientists in the conference had been there the day the troops had stormed the very place they were sitting in now. It would eternally be burned into their minds forever.

"What if we…somehow brought him up here?" A soldier spoke up. "Bring him up here…and take him down. It's abandoned now…so no one can get hurt."

"This place still has very valuable data files on many different subjects." The Commander said. "We can't risk losing them yet."

"What if we…" A pencil-thin scientist spoke up slightly. He cleared his throat and continued. "what if we somehow poison him?"

"How?"

"We've been working on a few things in the labs…but something went wrong and we ended up with a virus that can make you lose your mind. You'll go mad, hatred being your only feeling. You'll…want to kill all you see if you think that anyone's in your way. If left unattended you could eventually take your own life for hatred of yourself." The scientist gulped nervously. "And…lately we've been seeing signs of this virus in the outside world. Somehow it escaped the labs and has infected some small insects. But as soon as they bite someone…"

Silence in the room.

"What is this virus? A gas? A liquid?" The Commander asked.

"It can be either, although the liquid form takes effect faster if it's concentrated…almost immeadentally. Diluted and it can take weeks to fully take effect."

"Any ideas?" The Commander asked. "Because we now have to stop this virus and the most wanted criminal on our records."

More silence. No one seemed to even breathe.

"Operation: S.H.A.D.O.W. is now in effect." The Commander stood and headed for the door. The others in the room began to hastily gather up papers and notebooks and file out.

"Sir, we could show you what we've got." The skinny scientist said, coming up to the Commander's side.

"I was heading there anyway." The Commander responded. The group split in two, one half staying on the abandoned ARK and the other returning to the labs down on the planet below.

**XxXxXxXx**

Shadow the Hedgehog was currently looking out from his apartment window on the plaza below, where a small family of humans were gawking at the shops all around. The excitement on their faces was unexpected and genuine, something you don't really see anymore. Shadow smiled slightly; glad for something that wasn't hurting anyone or anything for once.

He turned away from the window to the interior of the room, which was bare besides a small glass case with a pistol beside his bed and a small cracked mirror mounted on the wall. He hadn't had to use the pistol in a long time, but lately more and more GUN soldiers had been walking the streets, asking random citizens if they had seen him. Shadow had to bribe the owner of the apartments with an extra cash bonus with his rent if she'd keep her mouth shut about where he was hiding out.

The soldiers would stop at nothing to bring the so-called 'incredibly dangerous' project down. To Shadow, they were the real threat. They killed innocents that day up on the ARK, including his friend. Never once since that night had he been able to sleep soundly. He would always awake to the sound of echoing gunshots and the warm spray of blood. He knew as long as he lived, the images would never leave him.

He turned away from the gun's case and began angrily pacing the room. Hatred boiled up inside of him, hatred for the soldiers, hatred for the world for allowing this to happen…and hatred for himself. Why hadn't he taken the bullet? If he had died that day, everything wouldn't be as bad as it was now. Maria would still be alive.

There was a knock at his door. "Hey, you'd better open up and tell me what the _hell_ those guys downstairs want!" Shadow ground his teeth together and unchained the door, opening it to find the landlady, giving him a very serious look. Never before had he seen her like this.

She was a rather tall and usually angry orange cat who didn't love anything but money. Her fur was styled in a way that said 'I'm successful in life, unlike you' and her eyes were set in a permanent scowl. Her arms were crossed over her blue shirt in an 'I'm waiting' gesture, and her left foot was tapping impatiently under the bottom of long jeans. Her tail waved back and fourth, matching her curiosity and anger.

"Long story." Shadow muttered. "Look, I'll throw in an extra twenty this time and everyone's happy, right? And-"

"Don't give me that shit," she hissed. "I want to know the truth."

"Then you'd better come in."

She wasted no time in pushing him aside and entering his small apartment. She sat haughtily on the edge of the broken, beaten sofa and said, "Those men out there mean business. What have you done to upset them? Was it you that broke into that bank a few months ago? It _was_ you, wasn't it? That's how you always seem to have money even when I've never seen you hold a job for more than four months."

"No, it's not like that at all." Shadow re-bolted the door and leaned against it. "It's not what it seems like, at any rate."

"Then what is it?"

"…I've…I've been framed."

"Is that so?"

Shadow sighed and ran his hand through his quills. "Look, I'd rather not talk about it. I'll give you the twenty now if you want, just get out of my apartment-"

"It is not '_your_' apartment, you _rent_ it from _me._" her green catlike eyes seemed to stare fire. "And I can kick you out of here before you even reach for the money."

"Lady, this is the only place that is within my budget…"

"If you want to be homeless, just keep talking."

A tense silence filled the small room.

"I really don't want to talk about this." Shadow said slowly. "it's more personal than anything. I've had a rough past couple of days and all of that doesn't exacally add to this tension growing outside."

"Just tell me why they're asking for someone that matches your description perfectly and I'll leave." The landlady said firmly.

"Come on, Nancy—"

"It's _Mary_."

"Mary, right…" Shadow hissed. "I'm telling you, I've been framed. Please, just let me stay a few more days here and I'll get out of your life forever. Until then…I'll pay whatever you want."

"You can pay me with the truth."

"I can't, _all right_? Dammit, can't you _see_ that?" Shadow's eyes flashed with red fire from the horror of the past. Mary jumped slightly but the look on her face didn't waver. She just nodded slowly.

"I'll give you one week. Until then…twenty a day."

Shadow moved out of her way as she unbolted the door and left after casting him a look that was lined with worry, a light anger and curiosity. Shadow slammed the door after her and stalked back to the bedroom, anger much like earlier coursing through him again. The family in the plaza was gone, as was most of the crowd. A few GUN soldiers were stationed at shops, glancing around warily.

_Damn you._ Shadow thought. _Why did you have to kill innocents_?

He caught sight of himself in the cracked mirror hanging near the pistol's case. The anger in his eyes took even him by surprise and his features softened a bit. His black and red striped quills were longer and had a more pronounced windswept look to them than they had been back when the horror had taken place. The white patch on his chest was in need of a strong brush along with most of his other fur. Shadow stalked out of the room and to the small kitchen, where he grabbed a dark bottle from the refrigerator.

Sitting down heavily on the nearly-destroyed couch, he screwed the top off and lifted the bottle to his lips, taking a long gulp that ended in coughs as the bitter liquid slid down his throat. It burned, but at the same time brought an artificial relief. He choked down swallow after swallow until he became aware of a knocking at the door.

"Go away, Mary." He muttered, taking another gulp. The bottle was nearly empty now.

"Erm…who's Mary? Open the door, Shads! This is important!" the knocking persisted.

Shadow slammed the bottle on the ground next to the couch so hard it nearly cracked. He struggled to his feet and drunkenly made his way to the door, where he had difficulty unlatching the chain. When he finally got his hand around the knob, it burst open and the uninvited hedgehog darted into his home.

"Wow, nice place. Um…well, you know those guys out there? They're going through building after building looking for you. Apparently your landlady let some info get loose on the street about your whereabouts. Wait, is her name Mary?" The hyperactive blue hedgehog stopped talking for a total of about five seconds. "Oh, that makes sense. Anyway, if I were you, I'd leave now. You can come to my place until you can get away from here."

Shadow stumbled against the wall and barely caught himself from falling. "Who are you? How did you even know I was here?" His words slurred. His mind was slightly frazzled. Who was this guy again…?

"If I said 'lucky guess', would you believe me?" The blue hedgehog wandered into the kitchen.

"Hell, no." Shadow slurred.

"Well then…" The intruder opened all the cupboards in turn, finding nothing but a few cracked glasses. "if you want to know, come with me."

"Stop going through my kitchen."

"Dude, you've got nothing. Well…nothing worth eating…" The hedgehog pulled a moldy loaf of bread out of the last cupboard. "When was the last time you had something decent to eat?"

"Get out of my apartment."

"I'll take that as an 'I can't remember'. But then again, you're drunk." The hedgehog stood in front of Shadow. "Now if you want some quality food I suggest you come with me and we'll both force Amy to make us something, all right?"

"GET OUT OF MY APARTMENT!" Shadow roared.

"Not with an attitude like yours," The hedgehog smirked, turning back to the kitchen to go through the fridge. "I'm going to guess that you can't even remember my name on account of drinking that pure alcohol crap. It's Sonic, all right? Don't forget it again."

"Sonic…I remember you. I hate you…" Shadow collapsed back onto the couch and ran both hands through his quills. "Wait…is this some sort of hallucination?"

"If it was a hallucination, would I be able to do this?"

Shadow forced his eyes to focus as Sonic brought out something green and glowing from behind his back. "Chaos Emerald. If you want it, come on."

"Can't it wait until morning?" Shadow caught himself before he fell face forward off the couch.

"No, not really." Sonic grabbed his arm and hauled him to his feet. "Guards are on the way. Tell me what to get from this dump and I will."

"The pistol," Shadow muttered, swaying on his feet. "just that."

The sound of glass breaking was heard. Sonic returned a moment later with the pistol and handed it to him.

"On second thought…" Sonic took the gun back. "Just in case. You're drunk."

He held the Emerald out in front of him and grabbed onto Shadow's arm. "Chaos Control!"

Before they had been standing in a run-down apartment. Now they were standing in a softly lit room with creamy yellow walls and a fluffy gray couch pushed up against the wall. Shadow collapsed into the sofa and almost immeadentally lost consciousness. Sonic twirled the gun a few times and tossed it onto the table in the next room along with the Emerald.

"Did you get him?"

He turned to see a small yellow fox looking up at him with bright blue eyes. Sonic smiled and said, "Yeah. He was drinking again, though. I don't blame him…If I had gone through something like that I would probably be worse. Tails, where's Amy?"

Tails thought for a second. "She's outside, last time I checked."

"Why?" Sonic pulled a chair away from the table and sat down.

"She thought that she saw someone out there, and then I heard voices, like she was talking to someone. She's been out there for a few minuets."

The door slammed and the sound of approaching footsteps was heard. Both Sonic and Tails turned to see Amy walk in the room, a worried expression on her face.

"What happened?" Tails asked.

"GUN's all over the neighborhood." She pulled a chair away from the table and sank into it. "It's like they expect Shadow to be in two places at once! Speaking of him, how's he doing?"

"Not very good." Sonic pointed towards the couch. "He was drunk when I got him, might have been a lot worse if I hadn't gotten there when I did. He didn't even remember my name."

"It's been… what… five months since Maria was killed?" Amy estimated.

"A bit more." Sonic said.

"I don't think time can heal this wound." Tails muttered. "Shadow's been through so much lately…and now GUN again…I don't know how he's not going crazy."

"I think he's about to." Amy sighed.

** XxXxXxXx**

Unknown to them, Shadow could live with Maria's death during the day…but at night, that was when it became unbearable. Because he saw it happening night after night, week after week…

_"GUN's after you." The professor's assistant said quickly. "You need to get out of here…get to the escape pods and go to the planet below. You'll be able to hide there. For a while, at least. Until we find you and bring you to the last safe place."_

_ "Where is that?" I asked._

_ "The last safe place. Even I don't know exacally where it is. All I know…is it's safe."_

_ I turned my attention to my companion beside me. She smiled down at me and grabbed my arm. "Well, if we're going to get to this 'safe place', we should get a move on, shouldn't we?"_

_ "What about the Professor?" I asked as we began making our way cautiously down the hall._

_ "He'll follow you. He has to delete some information we've accumulated over the years here…just in case GUN gets ahold of it." The assistant paused for a few seconds. "In fact…I should be helping him. You'll be fine without me."_

_ "But…I've never been taught how to use the escape pods." Maria said sheepishly. _

_ "Oh, you don't need any training or anything. They basically tell you what to do while you log in coordinates. I would suggest somewhere on the east coast of America."_

_ "Sounds ok." Maria nodded. _

_ We began to walk quickly down the halls…until they surrounded us._

_ "Freeze!" One of them shouted, raising his gun at my height. I stood protectively in front of Maria, even though she wasn't in any immediate danger._

_ "Why do you want him?" Maria asked, fear covering her face. "What has he ever done to you?"_

_ "We have orders to bring him down, one way or another." The soldier said bluntly. He cocked the gun._

_ "Maria-" I started, but a soldier cut me off as he stepped forward and roughly dragged Maria back from me. I felt anger rising in my chest and I stepped towards the soldier. "Let her go!" I commanded fiercely._

_ POW._

_ I felt the bullet narrowly miss me and strike at the ground. I jumped backwards, nearly losing my balance. Maria went pale at the small dent in the floor. The soldier had a firm grip on her arms, keeping her from running to me, or away. _

_ "Next time, the bullet will pierce your heart." The soldier who shot snickered. I narrowed my eyes at him with an expression that would have made a normal human cringe and turn away. The soldier just laughed. _

_ "Get him,"_

_ A couple of the soldiers advanced towards me. I backed up into another's reach and he twisted my arm until I cried out and collapsed on the ground. Another soldier ran forward with thick handcuffs, ready to restrain me. I could hear Maria screaming over and over, "Don't hurt him! Don't attack him! What are you thinking?"_

_ I managed to throw my foot in the oncoming soldier's face, breaking his nose and sending bright red blood spilling over his uniform. He fell backwards, dropping the handcuffs, clutching both hands to his face and stifling moans. The soldier holding my arms down loosened his grip momentarily from shock that I reacted that fast…that was his downfall. _

_ I twisted my arms out of his grip, slamming my elbows into his stomach and uppercutting him in the chin, sending him crashing into the wall. A few of the soldiers hesitated and then lunged forward towards me. I sidestepped them and darted towards the one holding Maria back. He let go of her and said, "Now, we could do this the easy way, or the hard way. You choose."_

_ I grabbed Maria's arm and started to drag her down the hall. She could barely keep up with me, but somehow she managed to take my pace and work with it. We seemed to by flying down the hall for who knows how long before another group of soldiers blocked our path. I skidded to a stop about ten feet away from them and glared._

_ "Unhand the girl and you won't be harmed." One of them said._

_ I let go of Maria' wrist and stepped forward. "Maria, get out of here, please."_

_ "I won't leave you." She hissed dangerously, stepping to my side. To the soldiers she said, "let us by. Now."_

_ "I'm afraid we can't do that." The soldier said before raising his gun and taking aim at me. I jumped out of the way and ran in the only direction I could think of at the time. Forward._

_ The soldiers held their ground, never taking their guns off of me. I eventually knocked one off guard and sent him crashing to the floor. A bullet ricocheted off the wall closely followed by another. One barely missed my head. I knocked another gun out of a soldiers grasp and sent another sprawling. _

_ I quickly reached down and retrieved a fallen pistol, quickly checking to see if it was loaded. It was. I looked up to see the final soldier advancing at me with his gun. A clear shot. I wasn't going to make it. Before I could stop myself, I raised my pistol and fired. It was him or me._

_ A red fountain of blood exploded on his throat. He collapsed to the ground, red staining his face, his hands, everything around him. His eyes widened as his life began to fade away. He tried to breathe, only succeeding in deep gurgling noises. His muscles spasmed, slowly growing weaker until he just stared blankly at the roof, death in his glassy eyes._

_ I had killed someone. They _were_ right. I was dangerous._

_ "Shadow!" Maria grabbed my arm, forcing me back to reality. We began running down the hall again. I threw the weapon I had used into the corner. I never wanted to do that again…_

_ We entered into a small square room. Six escape pods were left out of the fifty. Maria ran to a pod and began logging in coordinates. "East coast of the Americas…" She muttered. Beeps sounded as she punched in the latitude and longitude. _

_ The door opened behind us. Maria and I spun around to see a squad of four GUN soldiers enter. One of them raised his pistol and took brief aim._

_ BAM._

_ "MARIA!"_

_ I thought I was stuck in some sort of dream. Maria's soft blue eyes widened in shock and horror as the stream of blood erupted on her chest. She dropped to her knees. _

_ I turned towards the soldiers, hatred and anger burning in me. I ran at the one who had shot and downed him with three quick punches. I brought my hand down over the back of his neck and there was an unnatural sounding snap. Before I could stop myself, the other soldiers lay dead around me. I looked down at my hand and saw I was clutching the pistol that had been fired at Maria._

_ "Shadow…"_

_ I turned to see her struggling to her feet and making her way towards me. I ran to her and said, "Quickly! Get into the pod! We'll get help once we're on the planet! Maria, please! Come on!"_

_ "…I can't." She smiled grimly, but her eyes said otherwise. Her right hand was covered in blood from trying to cover her wound. It was too great; she wouldn't live. I refused to believe that._

_ "Come on, Maria. Please!"_

_ Her strength took me by surprise. She turned and shoved me into the escape pod, the latch securing over me. I stood and pounded on the glass, screaming her name again and again as she struggled over to the launch pad and successfully launched me into space…but not before I saw her collapse, dead._

_ I didn't stop screaming her name until the pod opened again on Earth and I discovered I was still holding the pistol that killed her._

__**XxXxXxXx**

"MARIA!"

Sonic jumped about a mile into the air and spun around towards the couch where Shadow was still sleeping uneasily. "Did he just yell?"

"Yep." Amy left her chair at the table and walked quickly and knelt down next to the couch. "Shadow! Wake up! It's just a dream!"

"I wouldn't say it's 'just a dream'." Tails whispered almost inaudibly.

Shadow was trembling uncontrollably, muttering pieces of broken sentences and digging his fingers into the couch. Amy gently touched his shoulder. "Shadow! Wake up!"

Shadow in response grabbed his head as if it hurt and pulled his knees up to his chest, still muttering and shaking. His fingernails began to draw blood, which stained his white gloved hands red. Amy grabbed his hands and tried to keep him from hurting himself any more. "SHADOW! WAKE UP!"

Just as if he had heard her, the nightmare ended. Amy let go of his wrists and sat back heavily. "This guy needs help,"

"A lot of it." Sonic agreed. "And something tells me that he didn't tell me the whole story about how Maria really died."

"I don't blame him for not telling the whole truth." Tails said quietly. "I probably wouldn't be able to tell anyone if something like this happened to me."

** XxXxXxXx**

Shadow awoke the next morning when the sunlight streamed through the windows onto his face. As soon as his eyes adjusted to the light he began to glance around, taking in a higher ceiling than the one in his apartment. He glanced to the side to see two wide green eyes.

"Hiya, Shadow!"

Shadow reacted violently. His fist caught Sonic in the forehead and sent him sprawling into the middle of the room. Shadow backed up towards the wall, but the room seemed to be spinning…his head exploded in a terrible migraine. He lost the strength to move and lay staring at the ceiling that seemed to be spinning in a thousand different directions at once.

"Why did you do that…?" Sonic moaned pitifully, using the couch to pull himself back up. "I thought you never had any energy after drinking."

"You scared the hell out of me," Shadow said, his voice hoarse.

"Yeah, well…sorry. Oh, last night you were having some sort of dream and were yelling for Maria. It seemed a lot worse than how you said she died."

The room spun slower. Shadow forced himself to turn his head and glare at Sonic. "It happened exacally as how I told you." He growled.

"This sounded a lot worse than a disease."

Shadow lost the fight in him and sighed. "Maybe I didn't tell you what really happened. Maybe I want no one to know. Maybe night after night I have these dreams."

Sonic rubbed his forehead thoughtfully, wincing a little. "Well, maybe if you talk about them I can help."

"How the hell will that help? I'll just be re-living it again!" Shadow managed to prop himself up on his elbows and ease himself into a sitting position. "Stop trying to force me to tell you!"

"Relax! I'm sorry, it's just…" Sonic trailed off. "…everyone's worried about you and now with GUN around again…"

"I'll worry about myself." Shadow growled. The room was beginning to go dark…and then bright again. The walls seemed to be spinning. He collapsed onto his back again, grinding his teeth together to keep from vomiting.

"Right…" Sonic muttered. "I'll check on you later. Everyone's outside, trying to figure out what exacally the GUN soldiers are doing here too."

He left, leaving Shadow to slowly drift back into another painful nightmare.

** XxXxXxXx**

The next week passed uneventfully, except for more and more soldiers were roaming the neighborhood. Amy had drawn all the window shades and told everyone firmly to not even look out the window. If the soldiers so much as suspected Shadow was with them, the door would be broken down and they would all be arrested, or worse.

Shadow began to spend his nights out on top of the house, watching for danger but more often than that keeping himself from sleep. He blended in with the darkness, making him nearly impossible to pick out among the night. He usually slept a few hours in the late afternoon, not enough for the nightmares but barely enough to keep him going the next day. He didn't speak much to anyone.

One particular night when the moon was full, he was out on the roof watching a few cars drift lazily down the streets. He found himself wondering why exacally he had lied to everyone about Maria's death, besides the fact it was hard for him to re-tell it again. He lived through it enough in his dreams. Shadow sighed and shivered a bit in the cool air.

A sound caught his attention. He glanced to his left to see someone staggering through the trees in the beginning of the small forest nearby, muttering and groaning to whoever it was' self.

A beam of light penetrated the woods and a voice shouted, "Freeze!"

Shadow didn't move as the lights settled on the figure and GUN soldiers surrounded whoever it was. The figure glanced from person to person before lunging at the nearest soldier, clawing and biting at his uniform. The soldier screamed and a shot rang out, reverberating around the houses. The figure that had attacked went limp and the soldier backed up quickly, clutching his shoulder. "That's one of them." He gasped.

"Get it in the truck." Another soldier commanded. Before two soldiers could reach down and either grab the figure's arms or legs, it moved and unleashed a long, pained cry. The soldiers froze momentarily, bringing their downfall. The downed creature sprang up and attacked both of them, spilling their blood at the base of the trees.

More shots. The creature wouldn't go down. It began to attack the others once the first threats were disposed of. Shadow only watched as the final soldier screamed as the figure dug its teeth into his neck. He shot wildly, finally catching it in its head. Blood sprayed into the tree and the creature fell to the ground, where the soldier shot three more times. It didn't move.

The soldier dropped his flashlight among the other dropped lights and ran. His light illuminated the face of the Mobian that had nearly killed him. Shadow waited until he was sure the soldier wasn't coming back before he jumped and landed silently on the grass, making his way towards the massacre.

Six soldiers were dead, one was alive and probably trying to find another squad. All six and one wounded because of the dark gray Mobian who's dark eyes stared blankly in front of him, blood pooling around his dead body, flesh between his teeth. The metallic smell of blood was overwhelming. Shadow backed up slightly from the hatred in its eyes. What had caused someone to do _this_?

Something wrapped around his ankle. Shadow kicked out and escaped the bloody grip of one of the soldiers, who was slowly dragging himself along the ground. Gashes covered his uniform and face, and his eyes matched the Mobian's. Dark and soulless. He smiled, blood pouring between his teeth and dripping to the ground. His breath was ragged and it sounded as though he was trying to breathe in the blood. He dragged himself further along the ground.

"Can you hear me?" Shadow asked clearly. The soldier's arm lashed out and gripped his ankle again, nearly pulling him to the ground. Shadow kicked out again and the soldier's arm snapped with a sharp _crack_. This didn't slow him in the slightest.

Sirens were heard in the distance. Shadow jumped out of the reach of the soldier and saw that two others lying around him were also stirring, their dark eyes fixed on the hedgehog in front of them. Shadow leapt back onto the roof and waited as the sirens grew to be unbearable until the large GUN car pulled up where the flashlights were illuminating the forest.

"Get them in the containment unit! We can bring them back to base and try to find a cure!" one of the soldiers shouted as he jumped out of the vehicle. Two more followed, opening the back and drawing out a thick cage. After a few minuets of dragging and the using of riot shields, they got all six soldiers and the Mobian in the cage and in the truck.

The first soldier who got out of the truck retrieved the flashlights and the proceeded to wash away the blood from the trees and grass with a strong smelling chemical from the back of the truck. Even though Shadow was a good distance away, he could barely keep himself from coughing at the harsh scent.

And just as quickly as they had come, they left. Like nothing had ever happened.

** XxXxXxXx**

** You can tell when I write things at night. They tend to be really nasty. Anyway, yeah, the beginning might not seem M-ish, but later on….Ooooh, it's gonna be **_**M**_**. I apologize if you were grossed out. Next chapter coming soon, so stay tuned! Reviews are appreciated, but not Flames! Flame me and I release Iblis.**

** Hasta la Vista, Readers. ~ Lordoftheghostking28.**


	2. Chapter 2

** CHAPTER 2**

"What happened?"

Shadow jumped at Tails' voice. He turned to see the small fox at the base of the stairs, his eyes wide as he pointed to Shadow's ankle. "Did you cut yourself? What happened?"

"Nothing." Shadow stalked off to the kitchen, where he stripped his shoe and sock off and started washing the blood away with a paper towel. "Go back to bed. It's only three in the morning."

"I thought I heard gunshots. They didn't see you, did they?"

"Obviously not. This blood isn't mine."

"Then who's is it?"

Shadow didn't say anything. He began wiping the blood off the side of his shoe.

"Did anyone die?"

"Go away, Tails!" Shadow hissed.

The fox hesitated for a few seconds, and then turned and climbed the stairs. Shadow knew he wouldn't let this matter drop, as soon as morning came he would be back and demanding to know.

Shadow eventually made his way upstairs and collapsed in his bed, somehow finding his way into a dream where GUN soldiers were coming after him, blood dripping from their mouths and multiple wounds. He tried to kill them with whatever he could find, but they would deflect the blows as though they didn't feel anything. They finally tightened their bloodstained fingers around his neck and shoved him against the wall, smiling evilly as he struggled to breathe. Shadow actually felt his lungs give out and the would went white…

Shadow sat up suddenly and stared around the brightened room, relieved it was just a dream. He had slept longer than he had thought, it was almost nine thirty.

After finding a pair of non-bloodstained socks and gloves, he made his way downstairs, where the smell of pancakes greeted him. Amy was at the stove and Sonic was trying to make a second batch of batter, but from the dark gray look of what was in the bowl…he wasn't doing very well.

"This is why women work in the kitchen…" Sonic muttered, dropping the flour on the floor, sending a white cloud rising in the air.

"Hey, remember that knives are kept here." Amy said.

Tails came running into the kitchen, holding some sort of device and looking extremely proud of himself. "Look at this! It can detect any traces of energy in an area! I figured we could use it to find Chaos Emeralds."

"Can you make something that can make pancake batter?" Sonic growled, cleaning up the last of the flour. He threw the paper towel at the sink and missed, hitting the flour again and sending it crashing to the ground again in a flash of white.

"No. Sorry," Tails laughed.

Shadow snickered, earning himself a very dangerous glance from Sonic. "Watch it, man, or Amy'll have _you_ making the next batch."

"To tell you the truth, I don't trust Shadow at all." Amy said. "No offence."

"None taken."

Tails put the device on the table and went to help Sonic clean up the flour for the second time. "Something happened last night." He said.

"Like what?" Amy asked.

"Shadow came into the house last night after I heard gunshots. His ankle was covered in blood that wasn't his."

"There were soldiers," Shadow sighed. "I watched them prowl through the woods nearby when someone attacked them. They finally brought their attacker down…but not before whoever it was passed some sort of disease on to the soldiers. They…changed. Their eyes were dark and they didn't seem to feel pain."

Silence covered the kitchen.

"Could that be why there's so many soldiers around here?" Sonic asked.

"That's probably the only reason." Amy turned her attention back on the stove, where small wisps of smoke were beginning to curl out from under a neglected pancake.

"Sounds like whatever disease this guy had is really bad." Tails finished cleaning up the flour and picked up his invention again. "Maybe we should be worried."

"Yet another thing GUN has 'completely under control'." Shadow muttered. "I bet they started this in the first place as some sort of weapon."

"I think we should do something." Sonic said at last.

"Like what? Join GUN? I think not."

"No, I'm thinking of warning everyone. I bet you GUN hasn't told anyone about what's been happening, as usual. They have a right to know if they encounter a murderous, bloodthirsty madman in the middle of the night."

"On the other hand this could cause mass hysteria." Shadow pointed out. "So warning them will just cause another probablem."

"I'm just trying to help!" Sonic said loudly.

"I don't think 'help' will do anything here."

"Listen, I'll tell a soldier about what happened last night and leave you completely out of it, ok Shadow? I'll tell him to try to warn others and be on the lookout for anyone suspicious. Now for the time being, let's eat." Amy brought a tall pile of pancakes over to the table and the four of them dug in.

"Best food ever," Tails announced after three minuets of complete silence as everyone stuffed their faces.

"Thank you." Amy muttered before the silence resumed.

** XxXxXxXx**

The Commander stepped into the lab to be greeted by the skinny scientist who had originally told him the news of the virus.

"Seven infected, one dead." The scientist announced, his expression never changing. "We have all of them and are running tests right now."

"What have you got?" The Commander asked.

"This way, sir,"

They walked further into the lab until they came to a pristine white table lined with papers, microscopes, and test tubes. Three scientists looked up momentarily and then resumed work. The scientist leading the Commander went to the last station and slid a slide onto the microscope's stage.

"Take a look, sir."

Small green dots were clustering around a single red blood cell, morphing it into a spiked prism and then moving on to more cells. Each spiked cell began to emit long strands of something so darkly purple it almost appeared black. The strands began to weave in and out of the infected cells until it reached the end of the microscope, where it disappeared.

"We can't have this uncontained even in the lab. It's making a gaseous form of itself and slowly mixing in with the air. With the soldiers in there…the virus is literally coming out of their pores and contaminating the air. Breathe in too much of it, and it can turn you into what they've become." The scientist explained grimly.

"Where are the soldiers now?" The Commander asked, stepping away from the microscope so the scientist could get rid of the specimen.

"This way, sir,

The Commander followed him until they came to a locked door that demanded identification. After flashing it by a scanner, the door opened and they proceeded into a small room divided by thick glass. A few men and women glanced up from their clipboards but then went back to their work.

Behind the glass and shackled firmly to the wall were the infected men. The dead Mobian lay in the corner of the room, unmoving. All the prisoners of the disease seemed to be screaming, but the glass was too thick to make out any words.

"Even if we could save them from this disease, they wouldn't remember who they were…or anything at all. It has some sort of effect on the brain, wiping it completely clean and replacing everything with thoughts of murder, even worse than we had anticipated."

The Commander nodded, staring at each of the soldiers in turn. His gaze settled on one. "He was my finest officer." He sighed at last. "These were some of my finest men."

"I'm truly sorry, Commander, but at the moment there's nothing we can do." The scientist said.

"Do you have a lead on anything?"

"Yes, sir, actually…we believe the first step to killing this virus off is with water. If the bloodstream is diluted enough, we may be able to slow the spread of the disease and work from there."

"Use that theory and get to work. We have a world to save."

** XxXxXxXx**

Shadow was once again on the rooftops, staring out over the miniature lights glistening in the houses down the street. He was watching for anything that seemed to be suspicious, anything at all. So far nothing out of the ordinary had arisen.

_They had the professor. They no doubt wanted information on everything he was working on. I knew that he was the last person alive that I could protect. I located GUN's base within the day and set out to find them. The professor must live._

Shadow tore himself out of the memory and stared up at the sky, where small lights that matched the houses were glowing. Somewhere up there…the ARK was still orbiting. Somewhere…

_Getting past security wasn't a probablem. Getting past the roadblocks wasn't a probablem. The probablem would be getting the soldiers to release the professor without harming him. I knew I would have to fight. _

Why did this all have to happen? Even if the professor survived the ordeal at the base, he would still be dead by now.

_"Make a move and he dies." A soldier shouted, jamming a pistol into the professor's temple. The old man didn't make any sound, but I could tell he was terrified. He looked awful, having lost everything important to him within three hours. I held my pistol at my side; the pistol that had killed Maria._

Shadow glanced to his side, where the same pistol lay. All these years it had been kept, as if it was waiting for him to return. Like it never wanted him to forget.

_I walked slowly into the room. I knew the soldier was bluffing. He needed the professor alive to access the codes up on the ARK. I lifted my gun and aimed it at his head, saying, "Now drop you gun and I don't shoot." _

_ The soldier hesitated; that was all I needed. In one smooth move I lunged at him and knocked him out of the way, grabbing his gun as he fell. I aimed both weapons at him and said, "This is for everyone." Before shooting._

Shadow could see the images as they unfolded again in his mind. Every sight, sound, touch. Everything… like it had happened minuets ago. Why did this have to happen?

_I freed the professor before they came. Twenty guards entered the room, armed with every type of weapon I could name. they began shooting at me, narrowly missing the professor. I moved away from him so he would be less in danger and returned fire, downing at least five before the soldier I had shot earlier managed to dig a knife into the back of my leg. I went down and they attacked._

He still had the scar. The _scars_. Well hidden but still there. Never to fade, like the memory.

_Knives and guns drawn, they mercilessly stabbed at or pistol-whipped me. I tried in vain to fight them off, but the sheer number of them was overwhelming. Both guns dropped from my hands but they didn't stop with their torture. I could hear the professor trying to drag them away from me, but the soldiers were too strong. Gashes appeared on my back, my sides, my arms, my chest…everywhere. Someone drove the heel of his boot into my ribs. Something cracked inside of me, making breathing difficult and nearly impossible. _

Shadow could recall the pain that still haunted him in his dreams. The pain of both losing everything and the pain inflicted by the soldiers. He tried to stop the memories from coming, but they wouldn't stop. Not even in his dreams.

_When I was barely hanging onto consciousness the beating stopped. I peered out from one eye, the other swollen and blood-filled. I barely made out the professor as he was held back by soldiers. I reached out one shaking and bloodstained arm in his direction and tried to threaten the soldiers into letting him go. Instead blood welled up in my throat and I began to cough, staining the ground around me an even deeper red. Someone roughly dragged me across the ground and threw me into a small, metal cage. My back hit the wall and I lay there, unmoving, drifting in and out of consciousness as the cage bumped back and fourth, sometimes sending me crashing into the opposite wall. _

_ At last the door opened and two figures swam into view, one dressed in a soldiers' uniform and the other dressed in white. "I thought I told you not to harm him!" The whitecoat said firmly._

_ "Couldn't be helped." The soldier dragged me out of the cage and threw me onto a nearby table. He locked my arms and legs in place with metal and then went on addressing my wounds with a stinging substance that burned worse than the original pain. My broken ribs couldn't be treated at the moment, but the whitecoat seemed to take notice of my pain._

_ The last thing I remembered for fifty years was his face above me as he injected something into my arm._

It was true. Maria's death hadn't been five months ago…it had been fifty years. Shadow glanced down at the dim outline of the gun lying next to him and the image of her collapsing dead on the ground filled his sight, only to vanish just as quickly as it had come. Time couldn't heal some wounds.

"Hey, Shadow?"

Shadow jumped about a foot in the air and grabbed his pistol, only to realize that Sonic had climbed out the window after him. He hissed in annoyance. "What do you want?"

"Nothing really. I just can't sleep. What's up?"

"None of your business."

"I think it's my business if you're sitting out here with a gun. I thought you got over the suicidal thoughts a few months ago." Sonic leaned against the chimney.

"It's not like that." Shadow growled.

"Then why are you sitting out here with a gun?"

"I'll tell you if you answer my question." Shadow retorted.

"All right. What is it?" Sonic asked.

"Why are you, Amy and Tails all sharing a home? I mean, you're not married, and I sure hope to hell that Tails isn't your kid."

"Uh…long story."

"I have time."

"Tails doesn't have parents. Well…parents that are alive, anyway. I honestly can't remember how he met me, but he's been tagging along ever since. Without him, I would probably be dead." Sonic said. "And as for Amy…"

"I'm not so sure I want to hear this part."

"Not cool, man," Sonic slugged Shadow. "it's not like that! I can't stand to be around her sometimes! It's just I can't find a place to stay and she offered me a few rooms in the house."

"I was expecting a lot worse." Shadow snickered.

"Shut up,"

There was a short pause in which Shadow began laughing. Sonic shot him a dirty look, but it went unseen in the dark. So he said, "Now why _are_ you sitting out here with a gun?"

Shadow's laugh died almost immeadentally. He hesitated for a few seconds and then said bluntly, "After what happened last night I think I should watch over the forest."

"There's more to it, isn't there?"

Shadow flung the pistol at Sonic. "This gun killed Maria."

"Why do you still have it?" Sonic caught it awkwardly and it fell from his grasp onto the roof.

"Because it can also take the lives of the people that killed her."

Silence. The only sound was a siren in the distance. Sonic said softly, "I thought Maria was killed by some sort of disease. Why did you lie to us?"

"So you, Amy and Tails wouldn't get caught up in all this hell like I was." Shadow muttered, staring back up at the sky.

Sonic picked up the pistol again and looked at it in the dim light for a short time. "This is an older gun…I don't think I've ever seen this kind before. And as far as I know…GUN doesn't use this sort."

Shadow didn't say anything.

"This is confusing. So Maria was killed by GUN, who somehow had this sort of old-fashioned pistol, and now you have it and are planning to murder everyone who killed her. Right? And if…" Sonic trailed off for a second. "Why are you staring up at the sky?"

Shadow still didn't say anything.

Sonic followed his gaze to see a tiny pinprick of light making its way across the heavens, slowly crossing the sky until it vanished behind some trees.

"Do you know what that was?" Sonic asked. "Because I'm pretty sure that was the ARK. It was shut down fifty years ago after some incident and a lot of people were killed…"

Realization clicked.

"But…that was _fifty years ago_!" Sonic shouted, mostly to himself. Shadow clapped a hand over his mouth.

"Dammit, do you want every GUN soldier in the neighborhood surrounding the house?"

"You have some major explaining to do." Sonic muttered.

Shadow backed off and stared at the sky again, where the small star-like light had vanished. "Professor Gerald Robotnik. Ever heard of him?"

"Once or twice." Sonic said.

"How about the Ultimate Life Form?"

Sonic's eyes widened and he said slowly, "How do I know this has to do with you?"

"Call it intuition."

"Right…Oh, this is stupid. I'm putting all these random thoughts together and I'm coming up with _you're_ the Ultimate Life Form." Sonic facepalmed. "I sort of didn't get enough sleep last night, so-"

"You're right." Shadow said darkly.

"Wait…what?"

"Do you know what my first and only instructions were once I was awakened? I was to destroy the whole of GUN. If I didn't meet Maria first…I probably would have gone off and done that. But once she was killed I wanted to go back to the instructions and bring it a step further…killing all the humans except for my creator. I was brought down trying to rescue the professor and locked in suspended animation for _fifty…damn…years_." Shadow hissed angrily.

"How'd you escape?"

"The professor's grandson freed me from the prison."

"You can't be serious." Sonic started laughing, taking Shadow a bit by surprise. "Eggman? No way…"

Shadow sat back, crossed his arms, and if looks could kill…Sonic would be dead.

"On the other hand…that's sort of bad." Sonic said, talking more to himself than the hedgehog in front of him. "I mean, he doesn't really have any good morals or anything…"

"I eventually sent him on a wild goose chase and ended up meeting you at some point and renting out that apartment. Everything clear now?" Shadow hissed.

"For the most part…" Sonic said thoughtfully. "And now GUN knows you're free and they're after you?"

"I think their main concern is the strange virus that changed the soldiers. I haven't caused anyone harm yet, but as soon as I do…they'll find me," Shadow glanced towards the forest. "but for now I think I'm safe."

A scratching sound caught their attention. Shadow carefully crawled around the rooftop to the opposite side they were on and glanced down to see someone at the door. But this person seemed to have difficulty with doors and could only scratch at them with overlong, bloody nails…

"Sonic, get me my gun!" Shadow hissed. "Now! There's one of them at the door!"

Sonic quickly joined Shadow at the other side and handed him his pistol. Shadow took brief aim and shot the diseased soldier directly in the top of the head. He collapsed and didn't move as a small puddle of blood blossomed underneath him. Shadow jumped down and landed silently behind the corpse, nudging it with his shoe.

"Is he dead?" Sonic asked.

"At last." Shadow confirmed. "Whatever this disease does, it seemed to make them mindless."

Footsteps were heard coming down the street. A wailing siren joined the noise and Shadow ducked into the bushes before a strong searchlight was trained on the dead soldier on the doorstep. Sonic backed up and lay flat on the roof, which concealed him enough so he wouldn't be spotted.

"There was a gunshot!" A soldier was shouting. "And then _this_!"

"Another infected," A calmer voice said. "I wonder who knew to take him out."

"We'll worry about that later, sir. We have to get his body out of here before the disease takes completely to the air."

Shadow held his breath and watched as two soldiers picked up the dead one and carried him off. Another soldier came and washed the front step off with the same strong smelling liquid that was used to clean the trees a few nights earlier. Shadow barely managed to keep from sneezing.

"Let's go." A soldier said.

"Not yet. Look at the door, it wasn't opened. Someone shot from the outside." The calm voice said. "So they might still be around here."

Shadow risked moving slowly back further into the bush. A few soldiers began to spread out and one passed directly in front of Shadow's sight. If he had glanced to the right…The Ultimate Life Form might have been forced to silence him forever.

He didn't dare move in case there were still soldiers gathered around their vehicle. If any one of them saw him and managed to survive and get the word out, he would be forced to run.

"Any news on Squadron Six?" someone asked.

"They're doing fine. No trouble for the past week. They've got it good." Another voice responded. "I envy them."

"What about the others?"

"I think they've run into as much trouble as we have. At least this disease hasn't found a way to spread very quickly."

"No, I was wondering about the others that have the assignment of bringing down the professor's project."

Shadow strained his ears for anything else. He might be able to find out some valuable information.

"Oh, them," The second voice chuckled. "they've got nothing to worry about. That advanced weaponry of theirs is incredible. No one could escape that."

"What if it gets the disease?" The first voice asked nervously.

"Even if it does, it won't be able to get through the defenses."

"What if it does what it did earlier…we have it surrounded and then it just…vanishes?"

"We simply track the power source. The only reason we haven't found it yet is because someone didn't have the device up and running. Damn recruits, they never do anything right."

"What'll happen to it once we capture it?"

"That's up to the scientists, but I think I heard that they plan to dissect it. Alive and conscious."

** XxXxXxXx**

The groups of soldiers reunited and left with hardly a trace. The only clue of them ever being there was the wet pavement on the front doorstep. Shadow must have waited an hour in case they came back before he moved out of the bushes and made his way back onto the roof.

"I heard every word they said." Sonic said solemnly. "For a moment I thought they actually got you when you didn't come back up here. Don't do that again."

"It's my life at stake." Shadow growled. "Do you think I'm going to be _careless_?"

"I don't know, you have this weird way of doing things." Sonic made his way back to the window. "I'm going in. It's sort of cold out here."

The sky was beginning to light up with the early morning's sunlight. Shadow just nodded and took up watching the forest and streets again, his thoughts clouded with GUN and their plans.

** XxXxXxXx**

** Wow, talk about a lot of flashbacks. Anyway, this chapter was mostly for what happened in the past, and there should be no more flashbacks later on. Reviews are welcomed! NO FLAMES! FLAME ME AND I RELEASE IBLIS!**

** Oh, yeah, updates every Saturday…or Sunday…just at some point over the weekend, all right?**

** Hasta la Vista, Readers. **

** Lordoftheghostking28 **


	3. Chapter 3

**CHAPTER 3 (Uploaded a bit early! Yey!)**

"Any luck?"

The scientist looked up from where he was analyzing data. "A little, sir."

"What have you got?" The Commander asked, taking a seat opposite his companion.

"We _can_ delay the virus from taking over…but only for a while. And it's risky. We dilute the bloodstream enough so the virus can't travel faster…but in order to do this we must know the exact weight, height, and age of the victim. Too much water and they die. Too little and they get infected at the normal rate."

"And to cure the disease?" The Commander prompted.

"Nothing we can use safely on living creatures. The water-alcohol disinfectant combination works for destroying the virus outside of a body…It's what we've been using to clean up after the bloodbaths." The scientist sighed and leaned back. "We've virtually got _nothing_…"

"Anything for cleaning up the virus in the air?" The Commander asked.

"No," The scientist bit his lower lip. "Anything we're thinking of using is toxic and would kill faster than the disease."

The Commander massaged his forehead for a few seconds and then said, "What were you working on before you made this virus? What went wrong?"

"A vaccine against death." The scientist said. "Well, more like disease-caused deaths. Something happened and we got this."

"Go through your research…see if the diseases have anything in common. Work from there." The Commander suggested.

"We did, sir. Not one thing is the same."

"Then you and your men have better work your asses off over the next few days."

"But sir…we did discover one thing." The scientist pulled out a small clear box with something oval shaped and metallic inside, covered with dried blood. "This was in the body of the dead soldier we found on the doorstep."

"What about it?" The Commander asked.

"Sir, we don't use this type of bullet these days. This ammo has got to be at least fifty years old. Which means-"

"I'm aware of what it means." The Commander stood, his face set in a stony expression. "Deploy troops out there at once. Shadow the Hedgehog has been located."

**XxXxXxXx**

"Someone was saying earlier today not to drink any water from the taps." Amy said, walking into the house and latching the door behind her. "They said that one of the infected contaminated it."

"Quite possibly." Tails tightened a screw in something he was building. "I've been sort of avoiding the water since this all began."

"There's someone outside!" Sonic shouted from the upstairs. "Walking through the woods! I think it's a soldier!"

Silence covered the house long enough for everyone to hear a long, drawn out low moan in the near distance. Amy ran to one of the windows facing the forest and Tails did the same. Shadow retrieved his gun from the opposite room and followed them.

"It's a soldier, all right." Amy confirmed.

"He's infected…" Tails gasped, his eyes going wide.

"What's he doing?" Shadow asked.

"I don't know…it looks like he's just walking in circles."

"Does this freak anyone else out?" Sonic shouted.

There was a thump from the opposite side of the house. Amy turned and screamed, catching the others' attention. There, clawing at the window and leaving blood streaks down the glass was another infected. It looked like she had been a normal citizen before the virus took her over. Blood dripped from her lips that were curled into an unnatural smile. Her eyes were dark and dead. Multiple gashes covered her body, a few even opening up as she clawed at the window.

"What's going on?" Sonic ran down the stairs and stopped dead in his tracks as he caught sight of the infected.

"This," Shadow growled. "Behind her…there's more. Everyone grab the longest knives you can find and we're getting out of here."

Amy darted off to the kitchen closely followed by Tails. Shadow cocked his pistol and took brief aim before firing. Between the broken glass and the bullet, the zombie-like being didn't have a chance. It fell backwards and lay, dead. Two more humanoid creatures in the distance began advancing at an alarming pace.

"Amy, hurry up!" Sonic ran after the two in the kitchen.

Shadow shot twice more at the closest zombie before the gun clicked on an empty cylinder. He threw it at the oncoming infected, breaking its neck off into a terrible position. That didn't stop it in the slightest.

"DAMMIT, COME ON!" Shadow shouted, picking up a chair and throwing it at the advancing menace. It was only about five feet away now.

A knife came flying out of the corner of Shadow's vision and stuck firmly in the zombie's head right above its ear, blood dripping down the hilt of the knife. It stumbled and fell, convulsing. The other zombie was advancing.

"Shadow, here!"

A knife stuck into the wall dangerously close to Shadow's arm. He wrenched it out of the wall and sliced at the oncoming threat, tearing a long gash in its chest. Blood spurted out of its wound, showering the room. Shadow stabbed at its head and it went down.

"Are you all right?" Tails asked, running up to him, a look of complete terror on his face.

"I'm fine." Shadow said. "I may be covered in blood, but I'm fine."

"Let's get out of here." Amy gasped, completely pale. She looked as though she'd faint at any moment.

"Not arguing." Shadow wiped the blade of the long knife on the closest zombie's corpse and they darted for the broken widow.

"_Freeze_!"

Three GUN soldiers aimed their weapons at Shadow as he jumped out the escape route. He froze and slowly lifted his hands in the air, with the knife clearly in sight. Amy, Tails and Sonic followed suit.

"Drop your weapons!" The first soldier commanded, but his voice was breaking. They were afraid. They should be.

In one smooth move Shadow ran up to the first and slammed both fists into the side of his head, sending him crumpling to the ground; unconscious but not dead. He then jumped high into the air and swung his foot into the second soldier's head, knocking him back a fair distance. The third risked a shot, missing the attacker by mere inches. Shadow's fist connected with his temple and he went down.

"Shadow! Leave them alone! Let's get out of here!" Sonic shouted.

Shadow gripped the knife handle and ran after his comrades. Shouts were heard and more than a few bullets sunk into the ground around them. But they managed to make it to the street before they ran into trouble.

A long scream warned them of the oncoming threat. Around two parked cars came another infected, their movements jerky and uncoordinated. It was heading straight for Tails.

"MOVE, TAILS!" Sonic slashed at the zombie, sending it falling to the ground where it screamed again and tried to pull itself along the road.

"Get in the car!" Amy shouted, wrenching open a red pickup's door. The others quickly jumped in and slammed the doors behind them. Amy found a key and jammed it in the ignition, backing up until the car lurched upwards slightly. The screaming of the zombie was cut short.

"Drive!" Sonic shouted as another bullet struck the pavement in front of them. Amy stomped her foot on the brake, shifted the car into drive, and then floored the gas.

A siren began to wail behind them as they spun out onto the main road. Amy twisted the wheel to the left and then sharply to the right, trying to get in control of the speeding car. She finally got it into an acceptable straight line and worked on getting as far away from the cars behind them as possible.

"How did the virus spread so fast?" Tails whispered, clutching onto the seat belt for dear life. "What happened?"

"Who knows. All we need to work on now is getting out of here and getting somewhere safe." Sonic turned to face the two passengers in the backseat but the GUN vehicle behind them caught his attention. "Amy! _STEP ON IT_!"

Amy twisted the wheel sharply to the left, sending everyone leaning to the right. The car skidded on two wheels as it rounded the corner and then continued on at a breakneck speed.

The GUN tank behind them slowed as it realized its prey had changed direction and then proceeded to use someone's lawn to make a giant U-turn. Before long, it was behind them again.

"Who taught you to drive?" Shadow shouted.

"_Does it really matter_?" Amy screamed back. "Right now this driving is saving your sorry ass!"

She glanced in the rearview mirror, judged a few distances, and then turned the wheel to the left as far as it would go. The car sped around the automobile behind them and backtracked to the main road.

"That was both scary and impressive." Sonic managed to say once no threats were seen during the next two minuets. "If I had tried that I might have died."

"We might have all died." Shadow added. He rubbed the side of his head where he had hit it against the window as Amy made her crazy turn.

"Yeah, sorry about that, but it was the only way we were going to all escape alive." Amy continued to accelerate a bit.

"Where are we going?" Tails asked.

"Anywhere but back there," Sonic responded. "preferably somewhere not zombie infected." He pulled the Chaos Emerald out of his quills. "I'm just glad I managed to get this."

"I lost my gun." Shadow hissed, sticking the knife into the side of the car and leaning back.

"Good, I hated that thing." Sonic said.

Shadow stuck his middle finger in the air at him. "Shut up!"

Amy rolled her eyes and concentrated on not crashing into anything that happened to get in front of them. She was doing a pretty good job of it so far.

"If you are to be in this car for the next hour or so, then shut up and I won't dump you on the side of the road." She growled.

Complete silence covered the stolen vehicle. Tails turned to the window and began watching for any oncoming threats. Sonic started humming a fast paced tune and Shadow tried to pry the knife out of the wall.

They were in the car for more than an hour. More than two. It was more like two and a half hours before the light in the sky began to disappear along with the gas in the car's tank.

"We need to find some place to re-fuel." Tails said once the alarm for low fuel popped up. "There was one a few miles back."

"We can't risk going back." Sonic spun the Chaos Emerald in the air a few times.

"Then I don't know what we're gonna do."

"I think there's a place up ahead." Amy said. "I'll stop there and we'll see about getting more weapons and something to-"

"AMY!" Sonic screamed, reaching over to twist the wheel.

A heavily armored GUN truck had pulled out from one of the side roads, directly in front of them. Sonic managed to twist the wheel enough to get the car to start to turn and avoid a head-on collision, but it wasn't enough to avoid it completely.

The car hit the side of the tank and flipped. The car's passengers were thrown from one side of the vehicle to the other at least five times. Glass shattered before the car finally came to a stop on its roof.

"Is…is everyone o-ok?" Amy managed to say. The air bags had deployed and she was pretty sure that was the only thing that kept her alive. Her seat belt was locked in place and she reached for a sharp piece of glass to cut it away. Sirens began to sound behind the wreckage.

"Damn…come on, we need to get out of here!" She shouted.

"Amy! I can't move!" Tails cried from the back among shattered glass and various debris. "Help!"

Sonic cut away his seat belt and crawled along the roof of the car to get to the back. "Tails, hold still! There's metal everywhere, if you move…I don't really want to even think of the possibilities."

"Sonic, GUN's coming!" Tails shouted. "Hurry!"

"I know, don't pressure me…"

Amy crawled from the car and began assessing the damage to her legs from the crash. Both were bleeding and bruised but not heavily. She would live. Her other injuries were minor and would begin healing within the day. She moved to where the back window used to be and pounded on the side of the door, trying to get Shadow's attention. He hadn't said anything since the crash…

Tails came scurrying out of the car and nestled up to her side, shaking violently. His left leg was bent at an odd angle and bleeding heavily, but that seemed to be his worst injury. Amy shouted to Sonic, "Get Shadow!" before ripping the sleeve of her dress off and using it to bind up Tails' wound.

"Shadow!" Sonic shouted. "Shadow, answer me! _Now_!"

The sirens were extremely loud now and only about a quarter mile away. Amy managed to get Tails standing and yelled to Sonic, "Chaos Control him out of here and come back for us!"

"Amy…I can't move…" Shadow's voice came from the back. "Glass…everywhere…I…I can't move…"

**XxXxXxXx**

The Commander stood. "What have you got?"

"Well…I have good news." The scientist said. "First of all…we developed a theory for a cure. Second…Shadow was spotted fleeing with some civilians. They crashed into one of our trucks and we're awaiting information now."

"Finally." The Commander sat back down. "Now…what about this cure?"

"It's really quite simple." The scientist said. "Our theory is-"

"Test this theory so we can get it out to the public. We need a cure _now_." The Commander said. The scientist turned and hurried out of the room and down the hall.

**XxXxXxXx**

"Shadow!" Amy shouted. "Shadow! Are you ok?"

"No he's not." Sonic crawled into the back among the hazardous glass and began cutting Shadow's seat belt off. Shadow fell onto a pile of various rocks and debris and began wheezing slightly. Sonic tried to get him into a sitting position.

"Get him out of here! They're coming!" Amy shouted.

"Stay with me, Shads," Sonic held the Chaos Emerald in front of him. "Chaos Control!"

They vanished in a flash of light just before the GUN vehicles came into sight, and circled around the crash. The driver of the vehicle that had pulled out in front of the small car stepped from the driver's seat and aimed his gun at the two survivors. He had apparently waited for backup before confronting them. "Where is he?"

"Who?" Amy asked.

"You know. Where is he?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

More guards began to file towards the wreckage, a few of them carrying medical kits. The doctors went right to work patching up the victims and afterwards the solders stepped up.

"Where is he?"

"Who?" Tails stepped in. "It was only me and her."

"And besides, how would someone just vanish?" Amy added.

"That's what we asked the first time. Men, watch out. He's armed with Chaos Emeralds." One of the soldiers said.

Tails' ears drooped slightly and he cast a scared look at Amy.

"You're coming with us." The soldier stepped back towards them and roughly began dragging them towards an armored vehicle.

**XxXxXxXx**

Sonic glanced around, trying to figure out where the Chaos Control had dumped them. Realization clicked almost instantly.

"Hey, Shadow, we're back in your apartment."

Shadow began to lose the strength in his legs and he slumped towards the ground. Sonic managed to get him to the couch before his power completely gave out. Blood was poring from wound after wound lining the left side of his body. Sonic placed the Chaos Emerald in Shadow's left hand and hoped that he would be able to use the energy to heal himself.

"Come on, Shadow, we sort of need you alive."

A few slashes on his arms closed up. The Emerald began to pulse with light that matched his heartbeat as the power flowed through his veins, healing his life-threatening wounds. Within ten minuets Shadow took a huge, shuddering breath and opened his eyes, staring at the roof like he was struggling to remember where he had seen it before.

"It's your old apartment." Sonic said. "We teleported here to get away from GUN again. But now we have no hope of saving Amy and Tails. Look at the Emerald."

Shadow glanced down at his hand to see that the once lime-green emerald was now a dull gray with a small touch of green still in it. It began to return to its color, but it would be in no time soon that it would be usable again.

"GUN got Amy and Tails?" Shadow said in barely more than a whisper.

"I'm pretty sure."

"We have to save them."

"Really."

Shadow struggled to sit up. "We have to save them!" He attempted to get up but his legs gave out from under him and he fell back onto the couch with a small grimace of pain.

"You're in no condition to go anywhere." Sonic picked up the Chaos Emerald from where it had fallen to the ground and put it onto the counter in the tiny kitchen. "So until you can do anything, we're stuck here. You'd better heal within the next fifteen seconds."

"It might be an hour. Possibly more." Shadow groaned.

"In the meantime I'll keep watch from the windows in case soldiers start swarming the streets again."

"You do that." Shadow turned onto his side and almost immeadentally fell asleep. Sonic busied himself with watching for anything out of the ordinary in a perfectly ordinary plaza.

But the danger didn't necessarily lie outside. Loud thumps were beginning to get louder from down the hall, like someone was running down it. Sonic turned towards the apartment door to see it open with a bang to a tall orange cat with a shotgun.

"Who're you and what are you doing here?" She demanded, leveling the gun at his head. "if you tell me now we can avoid a lot of trouble and bloodshed."

Her gaze flitted around the room, as if she was expecting more than one intruder. Her gaze settled on the couch where Shadow was curled and she turned her gun on him.

"Wait a second." Sonic said, stepping forward. The cat raised her gun back at him.

"Are you working with him?"

"N…No!"

"Why are you here?"

"Put the gun down and I'll explain!" Sonic nearly shouted. The cat lowered the weapon to the floor and let it drop. She never took her eyes off of the intruder, waiting to see if he would try anything.

"Thank you," Sonic muttered. "I'm guessing you've heard that he's wanted by GUN, then."

"Keep going." The cat growled.

"They tried to kill me and my friends to get to him. We crashed into one of GUN's tanks, and I barely managed to teleport him out of the car and get him here. He lost a lot of blood."

The cat turned her attention back to Shadow, who was still completely oblivious to anything. "Why do they want him?"

"I'm not sure if I should tell you." Sonic sighed. "But I can tell you that he was falsely accused."

"That's what he told me." The cat leaned against the door slightly. "I was his landlady, before I kicked him out. I'm Mary."

"He mentioned you a few times."

"Did he."

"Look, I know we're breaking about twenty laws, but can we stay here until he recovers?"

"How long will that be?" Mary asked, picking up her shotgun again.

"A day at the most. I swear…when he can walk again we'll be out of here."

"GUN's crawling the streets and there's no guarantee that they won't come knocking at the door."

"We'll take the risk."

"Fine, but only because I pity the both of you." Mary opened the door and paused slightly. "Do you think you could tell me what all this zombie shit is about?"

"I wish I could, but it happened so fast and so violently...I'm not sure that anyone knows how it began. Just be careful."

"That's how I'm still alive." Mary cocked the gun and went back down the hall.

**XxXxXxXx**

"How did you get in possession of a Chaos Emerald?"

"I don't know what you're talking about!"

The Commander's eyes seemed to shoot flames at the cowering fox before him. He sighed heavily and sat back down at the polished wood desk. "One last time…" He hissed. "how did he vanish into thin air, then? We _know_ he was with you. Don't evade that anymore. We have more than one eyewitness. Now just tell me_ where the hell he is_!"

Tails shuffled back as far as he could go until he brushed up against a few of the soldiers' legs. One of them nudged him harshly forward.

"I don't know! No one knows! I don't know what you're talking about!" He squeaked.

"Bring him back to his cell." The Commander shouted. The guards reached down and began dragging Tails out of the room and down long, cold hallways; finally throwing him in a small jail cell.

"Are you ok?" Amy asked nervously from the opposite cell.

"I'm fine," Tails muttered. "but I'm scared. I want to get out of here!"

"I do too. But until Sonic comes, we can't do anything."

Tails climbed onto the small cot that was shoved up into one corner of the cell and drew his knees up to his chest. Amy sighed and faced the wall, trying to think of anything that could get them out of there or at least pass the time.

**XxXxXxXx**

Shadow slowly became aware of a light somewhere in front of him. He opened his eyes, still feeling extremely tired and drained, like something had sapped his strength almost to its limit.

"Oh, good, you're still alive." Sonic flopped down on the opposite end of the couch. "I was getting worried for a few minuets there."

"What happened?" Shadow groaned. His head pounded with a severe migraine.

"Well, I got you out of the car and teleported us here. Your landlady almost shot us, but then she decided to leave us alone. I still don't really like her." Sonic jumped up and retrieved the Chaos Emerald from the counter. "I'm guessing you'll still need a little more power from this thing to get fully back on your feet, am I right?"

"Yes," Shadow managed to hold one shaking arm out towards the Emerald, which was glowing a strong green again. As soon as it touched his hand energy flowed through his body, healing any aches and restoring him to almost normal.

"Just one more thing before we leave and go rescue Amy and Tails," Sonic took the Emerald back. "you're covered in blood. If GUN sees you like that, they're gonna have a cow."

Shadow glanced at his arm and saw that almost all of it was caked in blood. He couldn't tell if it was his or the zombie's from earlier. Either way it still looked bad. "I'll be right back." Shadow got up and headed to the bathroom, where he turned on the shower full blast.

XxXxXxXx

"Took you long enough." Sonic said, yawning.

"Shut up and come on." Shadow opened a few drawers in the kitchen, only to slam them shut again one after the other until he angrily hissed, "Dammit, Mary threw my stuff out! I had a knife we could use for protection until we get a more suitable weapon."

"We could always ask her for something."

"I'd rather not." Shadow paused, rubbing at his right eye for a few seconds.

"Then let's get out of here." Sonic opened the apartment door slightly and checked for anything out of the ordinary. He and Shadow began making their way to the stairs.

"Leaving?" Mary asked from behind a small desk in front of the left side window.

"Yes," Shadow glanced around her to the outside, where not a single soul was wondering the streets.

"Unarmed?"

"We'll manage." Shadow pushed open the door and exited the building.

"Thanks, Mary." Sonic muttered, quickly following after him.

"Don't mention it. Seriously."

Sonic caught up with Shadow a little ways away from the apartments. "Where are you going? We have to _teleport_ to get to GUN's base!"

"Someone's over there," Shadow hissed. "up ahead. I'm going to see who it is."

"That's a very, very bad idea considering the circumstances." Sonic pulled the Chaos Emerald out from his quills. "Let's just teleport out of he-"

A trash can clanged onto its side as another of the infected lunged out from behind it, fast moving and not even completely taken over by the virus. Shadow jumped backwards and began searching for anything to be used as a weapon. The infected lunged for him.

"Shadow!" Sonic shouted. "Catch!"

Shadow made a wild grab for the Emerald as it sailed over his head, missing and then watching it roll behind the knocked over trash can. He made out two other forms of infected as they made their way towards their victims.

"_What the hell was that?_" Shadow shouted at Sonic while at the same time kicking out at the zombie's kneecaps trying to get it to fall. It stared him straight in the eyes with its own dead, dark ones and smiled, blood leaking out from behind its teeth. Shadow fought down nausea and continued trying to keep the zombie from advancing any further.

"Erm…I don't know." Sonic mumbled. "Hang on, I'll get it back or-"

"JUST DO IT!" Shadow screamed, bringing his shoe around in the zombie's face, breaking something with a loud snap. It didn't slow down at all.

There was a streak of blue as Sonic ran towards the fallen Chaos Emerald, at the same time downing one zombie. Shadow turned his attention back on his attacker and at the same time felt something metal and hard underneath his feet. He quickly reached down and slammed the end of a long metal rod into the infected's chin. The rod went through its jaw, rearranging it with a sickening crunch, and exited just over its ear. It collapsed on the ground, twitching and choking on its own blood. Shadow wrenched the rod out of its head and ran towards where Sonic was busy with another victim.

Three solid hits to the head and the zombie was dead. Sonic handed Shadow the Chaos Emerald with a sort of ashamed look on his face. "Sorry about that."

"Do it again and this rod will go through your eye."

"Damn, relax!"

"How can I relax? Two of my friends were kidnapped and we're surrounded by this strange virus that's changing all the people into bloodthirsty killers!" Shadow hissed. "And to add to this, there-" He grew quiet when he was certain he heard footsteps.

"What?"

"Someone's coming."

There was a click, closely followed by many. That could only mean one thing.

"MOVE!" Shadow grabbed ahold of Sonic's arm and dragged him out of the firing zone as hundreds of bullets began flying and ricocheting back a fourth. Both hedgehogs dropped behind a house and waited for the hail of bullets to subside.

"How'd they get here?" Sonic shouted over the noise.

"I don't know or care, all I care about is getting the hell away from here!" Shadow held the Chaos Emerald out in front of him. "Chaos Con…" He cut off as began coughing up bright red blood.

"Shadow!" Sonic shouted. "Are you ok?"

Shadow dropped the Emerald and doubled up, still coughing up his own blood. The clanging of bullets all around began to stop and shouts were heard instead.

"Shadow, come on, we really need to get out of here…" Sonic managed to get Shadow to lean against the building they were hiding behind. Before he could reach for the Emerald GUN soldiers began rounding the corner.

"DON'T MOVE!" One of them screamed.

Sonic didn't move.

"Good. Someone get the Emerald."

"No…" Shadow gasped. "Sonic…get out of here now!"

"Is he coughing up blood?" A soldier asked really to no one in particular. "Isn't that the first stage of the virus?"

Shadow was fairly certain that he wasn't scratched or even touched by any of the infected. Then why was he showing signs of the disease?

Sonic must have thought the same thing. "What?" He demanded.

"Didn't you know the virus can take to the air? That's why all the victims all have long gashes on their bodies…the virus is splitting open their skin and taking to the air. He must have some infected blood on him or was around someone with the virus." The first soldier said. "But virus or no virus, we have to bring him back to base."

Shadow gave one last cough and slumped against the wall, taking in great breaths. He really began to hope that the rest of the disease didn't take ahold of him before he and Sonic could save Amy and Tails. The soldier began walking towards him, gun still at the ready. Shadow knew it was now or never.

He leaned forward with surprising speed, grabbing Sonic's arm and the Chaos Emerald and at the same time shouting, "CHAOS CONTROL!"

As the first bullets left the barrels of the soldiers' guns, a flash engulfed both hedgehogs and they vanished. The ammo bounced harmlessly on the pavement.

"Now what?" a soldier asked.

"We wait. Sooner or later Shadow will fully develop the virus and what will he do? He'll attack others. When this happens we wait for reported sightings and then capture him."

**XxXxXxXx**

"Shadow, are you all right?" Sonic demanded.

"I'm fine." Shadow growled. "Leave me alone. I don't have the disease."

"Then why were you coughing up blood?"

Shadow just began walking. They were in the last place GUN would think to look…their own base. He entered an automatic door and it slid open to present a darkened hallway.

"Wait a second, Shads—"

"_Don't call me that_!"

Sonic got slightly taken aback a little. Sure, Shadow was usually dark and antisocial, but he seemed to be giving off a vibe of pure hatred. Sonic cautiously followed him into the base, ready for anything.

**XxXxXxXx**

"News on your friend." The Commander said, stopping outside both Amy and Tails' cages. "Shadow has the disease. He more than likely acquired it from the air, as he's not fully infected yet. But unless he gets a cure soon, he'll become one of them."

"And you've made the cure?" Amy asked, trying not to give away how scared she was at the moment.

"As a matter of fact, we did." The Commander held up a small vial of something clear with just a hint of blue in it. "A combination of antibodies and various medicines. We hope to make a simpler version eventually, but for now this is what we have. He has to come to us to get this."

Tails caught Amy's eye from across the room. His eyes were wide with worry but he didn't say anything. Amy forced herself to look the Commander in the face and said, "And what will you do once you have him?"

"Why ruin the surprise?" The Commander smiled evilly, pocketing the cure and heading back towards the door. "You'll know soon enough."

**XxXxXxXx**

**CHAPTER 4**

The scientist glanced from his notes to the very dead infected soldier in front of him. This wasn't right…it was suppost to cure him!

The soldier's body moved. The scientist backed up slightly, afraid that the disease still had a grip on its victim. The soldier moved again and slowly lifted his head to the side. His dark eyes were now back to their original blue, although his facial expression was of complete shock and unknowing.

"Hey, it's me." The scientist said softly.

The soldier's eyes crossed and he didn't seem to be able to focus on the other man. He went limp and the scientist sighed softly. Just as he had thought… brain damage. This man would never be the same again.

But as the scientist crossed out of the room, he caught sight of himself in a mirror. His pupils were wide and rounded, like a cat's eyes in the dark. Looking closer in the mirror, small, tiny dark tendrils were slowly spreading out from his pupils around both of his corneas…

**XxXxXxXx**

"Shadow, do you know where you're going?"

"How many times must I say it? I'm following the energy left by another Chaos Emerald!" Shadow hissed, gripping the Chaos Emerald he was holding tightly. He coughed again, spitting blood into the corner of the hallway.

"Shadow, relax. Even if they send guards we can take them down."

"How can I relax? I feel like my veins are on fire!" Shadow stumbled against the wall and coughed again. The Chaos Emerald flashed bright green and he managed to get back to his feet, renewed by the energy.

"Shadow, turn around." Sonic said slowly.

"No time," Shadow wheezed, struggling forward. Sonic grabbed his shoulder and turned him around harshly.

Shadow's right eye was darker than his left. In fact, it was completely dark. That was all Sonic needed to know; his friend _was_ infected with the virus.

"What are you doing?" Shadow shoved him backwards harshly, hatred on his face. He turned and began walking quickly down the hall, coming to a door.

"There's two energy sources. I'll go straight, you go in here." He commanded, continuing down the hall. Sonic watched him go before pulling the door open and walking into a deserted lab. A thick slab of glass separated the room into two halves, the opposite side stained with blood in places.

"Did they get some of the infected?" Sonic wondered out loud.

He decided that was unimportant at the moment and continued through the lab. On one of the tables in the back was a glass case with a vial of something clear but slightly blue. A label on the test tube blared, 'TRIAL 1 CURE.'

Sonic wedged the door on the case open and took it._ Shadow might need this if I run into him again_…he thought. He continued through the lab until he came to the door out. After checking to make sure it was clear, he exited, coming to some stairs going up.

A low, agonized moan came from the top. "Shadow?" Sonic whispered, in case there was someone guarding nearby. He began to quickly ascend the stairs to see a man in a white lab coat that was stained red on the front from blood. His eyes were dark and the expression on his face hinted that he wasn't yet taken over. Sonic took a step backwards just in case.

"No…no…help me…cure…please…" The infected groaned. Blood fell from his lips and soaked into his already blood-colored front.

Sonic rolled the vial of the cure towards him. The scientist reached into a pocket and pulled a syringe out, clumsily filling it with the cure and stabbing himself in the arm. He began to shake violently, finally pitching forward and lying still.

"Are you all right?" Sonic whispered again. The overwhelming smell of blood from the infected made him cough long and hard. Almost too hard…

_Oh no…_ Sonic thought miserably as small flecks of red stained into his glove. _No, not me too_…

**XxXxXxXx **

Shadow felt hatred boiling up inside of him. He couldn't explain it…but he wanted to kill someone. Kill them for what they've done to him and Maria. Kill them for what they've done to this world. Kill them for all the misery. He stumbled into the wall again and struggled for breath. Blood welled in his throat again. There was no mistaking it now. He was infected.

"Damn you all," He muttered. "damn you all for this. Maria, I'm coming…"

He thought he saw someone up ahead, but the Emerald said otherwise. Shadow continued on ahead anyway, using the wall for support. He came to a closed door and had trouble gripping and turning the knob. It was almost as though he had been drinking again.

Someone lunged at him and pinned him onto his back, howling with triumph and pain. Shadow kicked out at the attacker and pushed whoever it was backwards and into the wall with a loud crack. The attacker kept coming.

"Chaos…S..Spear…" Shadow groaned.

The Chaos energy knocked him backwards into the opposite wall but completely disposed of the attacker. Shadow watched the limp form and realized it was another infected. But how did it get into the base…?

"I'm coming…" Shadow muttered, dragging himself back upright. He stumbled into the room to find it was dark except for a cabinet in the back that was filled with something clear laced with some sort of blue. He smashed the Chaos Emerald into the glass and pulled a syringe out. He barely made out the writing on the side, but he was pretty sure it said 'CURE' on it.

Shadow didn't care if he died. If he died, the he would be with Maria again. If he lived, he could avenge her first. Either way was fine with him. He stabbed the needle into his arm and depressed the plunger, feeling the strange liquid enter his arm.

Immeadentally something that felt like liquid fire began coursing through his veins, burning throughout his entire arm and spreading to his chest. Shadow doubled up, dropping the Chaos Emerald and trying to dull the pain. It was spreading up his neck to his head…_inside_ his head…now it was everywhere. He screamed.

The last things he remembered were the lights turning on and footsteps rumbling along the ground.

**XxXxXxXx**

Sonic continued to hurry though the base, looking for anything like the cure he had found in the glassy room or another Chaos Emerald. Or even Shadow, although he was sort of worried that he might attack him.

A door came into view and he pulled it open to be greeted by two small jail cells on opposite sides of the walls. A small familiar yellow fox caught his eye.

"Sonic!"

"Tails?" Sonic stumbled into the room. "Is that you?"

"Yeah! Amy's here too! Sonic, the Commander wants to kill Shadow and I think he wants us to watch. We need to get out of here!" Tails' voice rose in fright.

"Relax, buddy. We'll get out of here." Sonic went to the lock on the door and pulled on it, but to no avail. "I need something long and skinny."

"There's a nail in here." Amy said, holding a nail out for Sonic to take. "I don't know if it'll work, though. I found it earlier but I couldn't reach the lock."

"Nope, works fine." Sonic popped open Tails' lock and pulled the door open. The fox jumped out and headed to the door.

"How did you get here? Where's Shadow?" Amy asked as Sonic went to work on the other lock.

"He went off in a different direction to look for a Chaos Emerald or something. We were suppost to find you guys but I think he can't think straight. He was infected." Sonic said, pulling the lock away and opening the cell door. "Come on, we need to find him and get out of here."

"The Commander's coming!" Tails shouted.

Sonic jumped up beside his friend and glanced out the door to see the Commander dangerously close. When the door began to open he lashed out and caught the Commander across the face, sending him reeling into the corner. One of the guards with him cocked a gun and shot, just barely missing Sonic's head. The other trained his gun at Tails in a move-and-he-dies sort of way.

"Well, look who we have here." The Commander sneered, rubbing his jaw where Sonic had slugged him. "We've got them all now."

"What?" Tails' eyes grew wide. "No! No way!"

"Yes. And if you all want to see each other again, I would suggest getting back in your cells. You, in with the fox." The Commander growled.

A guard stepped forward when Tails refused to move, sending him scurrying into the cell he had just escaped from. The Commander latched the locks firmly in place and stepped back into the hall. "Now, I think we have cure to distribute, if I'm not mistaken."

**XxXxXxXx**

"So it works?"

"Yes, sir." The scientist said. "it cured the soldier." He left out the part about getting the disease himself. They weren't doing a very good job of isolating it completely. He had changed into a clean white coat and had spent the last few minuets getting the blood off his hands and arms. If anyone looked at him they wouldn't be able to tell he had the disease.

"Perfect. Get to work producing more. We have a world to save." The Commander began to head towards the door.

"Where are you going, sir? I thought you were going to survey this entire process."

"I'll join you later on. But for now I have other things to do." The Commander left the room and ascended a few stairs and walked down a long hallway until he came to a door that demanded identification. After waving an ID in front of the scanners and pressing his thumb onto a fingerprint pad, he entered the high security room.

Shadow's head turned towards the sudden noise of the door opening, but other than that he didn't react at all. The Commander crossed over to the side of the room and asked one of the scientists there, "Anything?"

"No, sir. He's not even fully conscious."

The Commander turned his attention back at the operating table in the middle of the room. Shadow lay on it, held in place by at least ten belts restraining his arms, legs and middle. His eyes were opened slightly, but they were unfocused and not taking in any detail. Above the table was a bright blaring light that seemed as though the sun had been captured in watt form. And above that attached to the roof was an extendable arm that was, at the moment, folded onto itself. At the end of that was a metallic wand-like extension.

"How about we get that up and ready." The Commander's lips twitched in a cruel smile.

"Sir, you said yourself that we shouldn't use th-"

"That was an order."

"Yes, sir."

The scientist walked over to a nearby computer and hit a few buttons. The arm unfolded with a robotic whirling noise and the tip of the wand on the end was positioned about a foot from Shadow's motionless body.

The Commander walked back over to the table. Shadow's eyes opened a bit more, but he still didn't seem like he was actually seeing. "Can you hear me?" The Commander asked loudly and clearly.

Shadow twitched a little and drew in a deep breath. He blinked hard a few times, finally beginning to realize where he was. A look of worry appeared on his face.

"You walked right into our trap," The Commander said emotionlessly. "and now you are going to die."

"I don't fear death," Shadow hissed. "I don't fear anything."

"How about the death of your friends? Do you fear that?" The Commander demanded.

Shadow didn't say anything.

"You yourself may not fear death…but as soon as someone else threatens your friends' lives, that's when you really fear. Fear that they'll suffer. Fear that they'll watch each other die. I'll tell you what…I won't kill them the way I'm going to kill you." The Commander reached up on the side of the robotic arm and flipped a switch.

Shadow tried to hold back his screams. The metal wand-like thing sent waves of electricity through his body, burning worse than fire. He pulled at his bonds but they held him tightly in place and refused to budge an inch. Shadow ground his teeth together but that didn't stop the strangled shriek from escaping his throat. The Commander reached back up to the arm and flipped the switch off.

"If I turned that on for five seconds on the highest intensity for every soldier you've ever killed…you would be dead before twenty seconds were over." The Commander's face broke into a cruel smile as he watched Shadow gasp for breath and twitch from the aftermath of the electricity.

"Now I want you to answer some of my questions. If you don't, I'll turn this device on a level higher each time. Are we clear?"

Shadow could only take huge breaths. The Commander reached towards the arm of the machine and said, "Now…What was professor Gerald working on up on the ARK, besides you?"

"…I d-don't know." Shadow said shakily. "I swear, I don't—" He cut off as the switch flicked again and a higher level of electricity shot through him. He tried to arch his back but the belts cut into his stomach, driving all his air out of his lungs. He grabbed the sides of the table and gripped them so hard that the muscles in his arms nearly locked in place. The Commander flicked the switch again and Shadow began gasping for air like he had been underwater.

"What was he working on?" The Commander demanded harshly.

"I don't know!" Shadow managed to say in-between gasps. "I don't know!"

The Commander reached up towards the switch again.

"Wait! Wait, please! No!"

"I'm listening."

"Weapons! He and others were making weapons! I swear, that's all I know!"

"Good," The Commander moved back from the control panel. Shadow relaxed slightly but he couldn't control his shaking. That was caused by the electricity. "What were those weapons going to be used for?"

"Commander, please—"

The switch flicked again. Shadow went completely stiff as the third level of electricity was activated. He couldn't help it this time. He screamed.

"_What were those weapons going to be used for?_"

Shadow couldn't answer. He was shaking so badly and he couldn't seem to breathe normally. After a few seconds of gasping and weak coughing he said hoarsely, "D…Destroying you…"

"Is that so? Well, good thing we arrived when we did. I'm going to guess you don't know this next question, because no one on the ARK seemed to know this, even our undercover agents: Where are these weapons?"

"I swear…I swear I don't know…please don't…don't hurt me…" Shadow drew in another shuddering breath.

"I'm guessing you're past the point of resisting now, are you?" The Commander sneered. "Good. Now answer this…was there anything else they were working on? Anything important? Anything that can be used for destroying anyone else?"

"…No…"

"Are you one of those weapons? One to destroy us?"

"…I-"

The Commander flicked the switch yet again. Shadow pulled at his restraints with all his strength, trying to get away from the agony. A stronger scream than before was ripped from his throat. The Commander switched off the device with a cruel smile. "So you are, aren't you?"

Shadow's eyes closed slightly and a low moan escaped his lips. He was still shuddering but he didn't seem to notice anymore.

"How did you escape Prison Island?"

Shadow either couldn't speak or didn't hear. The Commander reached up towards the wand and flicked it on again. Shadow's screams could be heard through two floors and three closed doors.

**XxXxXxXx**

"What was that?" Tails asked nervously.

"I don't know." Amy said. "But it sounds like…yelling?"

"That's a lot of constant yelling." Sonic said slowly. "Do you think…?"

"…that that's Shadow?" Tails finished, his eyes widening and his fur standing on end. "They…they wouldn't do that to him, would they?"

"I don't know. They were cruel enough to release this zombie thing to the world, weren't they? Why should they not torture him?" Sonic cast a worried glance at the roof, where the faint scream was dying off.

"We have to get out of here! What if they do this to us next?" Tails jumped up and began trying to get at the lock, which was a good three feet above his head. "Come on!"

"Tails, we can't. We don't have long enough arms and the Commander threw the nail into the corner." Amy said softly. "There's nothing we can do."

"Nothing?" Tails squeaked, his ears drooped.

"Nothing."

"There's gotta be something!"

"Maybe there is something in the future we could do, but for now…" Amy trailed off as footsteps were heard down the hall.

"That's not the Commander, is it?" Sonic asked.

"No, he has heavier footfalls."

"Then who…?"

The door was pushed open and an orange cat stepped in, holding a long shotgun. "All right, shut your traps and do exacally what I say if you want to get out of here."

"_Mary?_" Sonic blinked hard, like he wasn't exacally sure who he was seeing. He then broke off in a fit of coughing.

"Yes, that's me. Come on," Mary drew a ring of keys from her pocket and unlocked the first cell. "I'm an undercover agent for GUN…but after what's been happening lately…" She shook her head and trailed off, going over to the other cell to unlock it.

"Why didn't you sell Shadow out as soon as you learned that he was the one GUN was looking for?" Tails asked, pushing open and cell door and stepping back into freedom.

"GUN's motives for capturing him didn't make sense. I tried to get him to tell me what happened, but he only said he was framed." Mary pulled open Amy's cell. "Come on, we have to work quickly. Most of the scientists here have been infected, from the full stages of the virus to the beginning signs. We need to get this to them as soon as possible."

She opened a small side pack and pulled out about twelve vials, all filled with the cure. "Take some and go in pairs. We need to do this as quickly as possible and at the same time get the Commander to let Shadow go. You and you go together, and you come with me." Mary motioned for Amy and Tails to take vials and get out of there.

"You cover this floor and once you're done, move up a floor. This guy and I'll work on the highest floor and saving your friend." Mary gave Amy a small clear bag full of syringes with the cure. "Only if you think you're developing signs of the virus use the cure. We need to save as much as possible."

Sonic began coughing again, blood flecking his glove. "Then I think I need it." He gasped in-between coughs.

"Yes you do." Mary stuck one of the cures into his arm. "This might not feel very good, but believe me, it's better than developing most of the virus."

Sonic staggered back against the wall and used it for support as what felt like fire spread through his entire body. Eventually the pain became so intense his knees gave out and he curled into a ball, groaning and still coughing. Tails ran to his side shouting, "Sonic, don't die!"

"I'm not dying," Sonic muttered as the fire inside of him faded away into a dull throb and finally to nothing. "if the disease is worse than that, I don't want to even think about it."

"Get up." Mary growled.

Sonic struggled to his feet and barely caught the shotgun as Mary threw it at him. "You get to carry this. I hope you're a good shot. Now you two…get going! We don't have any time to waste!"

Amy and Tails turned and began running down the hall. Mary motioned for Sonic to go first and they went the opposite way, towards where a staircase lead upwards. She paused at the bottom of the stairs and listened for anyone that might be coming. She nodded slowly after a moment of silence and they ascended the stairs quickly, only to halt at the top as a long, agonized cry filled the stairs.

"Oh no…" Sonic muttered. "We have to stop the Commander, and right now."

"Unfortunately, we have other things we have to do before we do that." Mary cast a truly apologetic glance in Sonic's direction. "He just has to hold on until we can afford to stop them."

The scream was cut off almost as quickly as it began. Silence descended on the stairs. Mary slowly poked her head around the corner and then said, "Coast is clear. Come on…there was a room full of people that was working with the disease…I don't think they knew the consequences."

They came to a metal door set far into the wall. Mary gripped a syringe and Sonic cocked the shotgun, just in case someone decided to take their diseased filled wrath out on them. Mary threw open the door and they entered into a semi-dark lab. Wires from a computer were cut and sparking in a corner, and may tables were flipped and broken, the contents on them spilt over the floor.

"Damn…" Mary moved among the wreckage. "Where is everyone?"

"Mary, _turn around_!" Sonic shouted.

Mary spun around to see a scientist as he crawled out from the wreckage of a particularly heavy table, his legs useless and he used his arms to drag himself across the floor. Mary gripped the syringe harder in her fist and approached the diseased.

He took a swipe at her legs, barely missing and actually leaving small bloodstained streaks on her jeans. Mary took that opportunity to dig the needle into the zombie's arm as it lay out in front her. He began to groan, and cough up more blood until it lay still.

"Is he dead?" Sonic asked.

"No. The cure might knock certain people out while it does its job." Mary took another syringe out of the bag and glanced around the room again. "I thought there was at least ten people in here!"

"There were," Sonic motioned to the corner, where a dark form lay. "but I think they tore each other apart. That zombie we just cured had its muscles torn out from its legs."

"We'd better call security to come and clean this place up, then." Mary pounded on a small keypad nearby the door. "Come on, they'll be arriving soon. We need to get as far away from here as possible."

**XxXxXxXx**

Shadow's head rolled limply to one side and he didn't move, except for involuntary muscle spasms that were caused by the high voltage that tore through his body. The Commander slammed the switch off and turned back to the scientists gathered in the back. "As soon as I have everything I need from him you can begin the dissection."

"Yes, sir," Only one scientist muttered.

The Commander turned and left the room, slamming the door shut behind him. The scientist that had spoke turned his attention back on his superior's victim and sighed softly. There was nothing he could do to voice his opinion, even in a situation like this. The heartbreaking moans coming from the trembling form strapped to the table almost pushed him to take a stand.

But then again, the Commander could easily kill him if he spoke up against him. Because no one spoke up against the Commander and lived. He had seen his friend killed.

He slowly retracted the robotic arm back towards the roof via computer. He wondered if Shadow would die before the Commander allowed the other scientists at him. Upon thinking about it, that would probably be better than feeling your own body being cut open by razor sharp knives and somehow still staying conscious. It would be a living hell.

The scientist reached into his pocket, feeling his fingers brush against a small vial. In this vial was something he himself had created in case the virus spread to him, back before the cure we made. It would kill instantly as soon as it reached the heart, to spare the pain of being infected by the failed trial to build an immunity against death. The scientist was tempted to use this liquid on Shadow, just to spare him from all the misery and agony he would feel in the future.

"We'll be right back. Hold the fort here, all right?"

The scientist was wrenched out of his thoughts by his fellow colleagues as they headed towards the metal door the Commander had exited through. "We're going to see if we can find any longer scalpels."

"You do that." The scientist said.

They left, leaving him alone with Shadow.

The scientist pulled the small vial from his pocket and glanced at it. It was a thick purple in color, mixed with many types of poisonous berries and poison from thorns and even a couple of types of puffer fish. The perfect lethal combination. He got up from his place at the computer and walked towards the table where Shadow was strapped.

"Shadow," The scientist said quietly yet firmly. "can you hear me?"

Shadow shuddered harder than before, as if it were freezing in the room rather than a comfortable springtime temperature. His eyes opened slightly but then closed when they wouldn't focus on anything. He moaned as if he were expecting more pain.

"Don't worry, the Commander left for now." The scientist said. "But when he returns he'll continue with what he's been doing. I could kill you if you wanted, painlessly and easily."

"N...no…please…no…" Shadow muttered. "…No…no…"

The scientist sighed. "I'm not going to hurt you. But I could kill you painlessly if you want me too."

Shadow continued muttering broken sentences, slipping further and further into unconsciousness until even his shuddering stopped. The scientist pocketed the vial again and returned to his computer just in time as the door opened again and his fellow workers made their way into the room again.

"Couldn't find any." One growled.

"Too bad," now the scientist was really regretting not finding a syringe and injecting the lethal mixture into the doomed hedgehog's arm. He would have had a quick death compared to what was coming up. "when's the Commander coming back in here?"

"I don't know…an hour or so." The other said.

The scientist nodded. "I'll be back." He headed towards the door and left, turning towards the nearest staircase.

**XxXxXxXx**

"What happens if we run out of the cure?" Sonic asked as he and Mary rounded another corner and cautiously made their way down another hall towards another lab that seemed to Mary like another hotspot.

"Then we need to find more. Luckily I know where this stuff is made." Mary punched in a code and entered the door.

They were greeted by the moaning of another infected as she tried to pull herself up onto a table, where another scientist was standing, unsure to slam a slab of metal into their friend's face or not. Mary lunged forward and dug a needle into the infected's neck, making them collapse in a writhing fit as the cure spread through their veins. The scientist on top of the table could only watch, horrified, as the zombie stopped moving.

"Is she dead?" he asked softly.

"No. Just recovering," Mary handed the next vial to the scientist. "keep this until either you develop signs of the disease or you see someone with the virus. Got it?"

"…Yes,"

"Good. Come on, Sonic." Mary headed back towards the door.

"The cure actually works?" The scientist gaped, wide-eyed, at the syringe he was holding. "I thought we gave up on it."

"What do you mean?" Mary asked.

"The Commander himself told my group to quit working on the formula…"

Mary stood there for a few seconds, finally saying, "I'll have to ask him about that. But for now, we're off to cure the infected."

She grabbed Sonic's arm and dragged him out the door after her, leaving the stunned scientist still on the tabletop.

**XxXxXxXx**

"This door needs a code."

"I can see that." Amy muttered, eyeing the keypad set into the door. "Can you think of any numbers?"

"No." Tails cast a nervous glance down the hallway they had come from. So far they hadn't run into any infected…or anybody at all. It was starting to unnerve the pair as they ventured down hallway after hallway, meeting no one.

"Can you think of an override code?"

"If we did get ahold of an override code we could probably use it on every door," Tails tried to tear the metal casing off the keypad but it was screwed tightly in place. "for right now we either have to break in with force or just move on."

A door shut somewhere around the corner. Amy and Tails had nowhere to hide as a tall scientist rounded the corner and stopped cold in his tracks as he caught sight of them. But unlike most of the GUN organization, he didn't go running the opposite way yelling for security.

"What do you want?" Tails backed up behind Amy slowly. The scientist stood his ground, not even slightly worried that the two escapees were in front of him, trying to break into a locked door.

"Probably what you want," The scientist started walking slowly towards them. Amy and Tails began to back up. "Don't worry, I'm unarmed. Let me explain."

"Explain what? There's nothing to clarify." Amy growled.

"Do you want to save your friend or not?"

Tails cast a worried look at Amy but her eyes never left the scientist in front of them. She took a step forward angrily and demanded, "What did you do to him?"

"Nothing, and I never will. But the Commander must be stopped for many reasons, the top one being that he's planning to sell the cure for a high price and take control of this country. After that…who knows what he'll do. I have a plan, but it won't work unless you follow my exact orders."

"We can't trust you!" Tails interjected.

"You could spare the lives of your friend and the people in this country if you just listen to me." The scientist pleaded.

"What are you planning?" Amy asked cautiously.

"Something the Commander will never forget if he lives to tell the tale."

**XxXxXxXx**

**I love the last line in this. Sounds evil. Anyway… horror engage! I'm scary. Re-reading this made me freak out. It was about twelve at night and I was tired, and then I dreamed of zombies. Fun…**

**…anyway, updates twice in the upcoming week! Know why? SPRING BREAK! So until then, no Flames and…**

**…Hasta la Vista, Readers!**

**Lordoftheghostking28**


	4. Chapter 4

**Ok, uploaded early! YEY SPRING BREAK! ENJOY PEEPS. I know this has had a couple of you in suspence! One chapter after this, and it's all over!**

**CHAPTER 4**

Mary turned around another corner and only then did she release Sonic. "All right, you need to listen hard and now," She hissed. "we're going to somehow confront the Commander and get him to tell us what the hell he's planning. The cure works…why does he want it stopped? He can't possibly be doing it for money…"

"Only one way to find out." Sonic sighed. "Do you know where he could be at this time?"

"No. I'm relying on my sense of intuition and going towards where the screams were last heard." Mary paused at another corner and then turned around it when she figured no one was there. Sonic had to speed-walk to catch up with her.

"Mary, sorry for interrupting your search for the Commander…but how long do you think Shadow'll hold out? I mean…the guy must be in torturous misery. He won't last much longer."

Mary stopped at the base of a staircase and sighed. "He's the distraction that the Commander is devoting time to. We use him to lure the Commander…but there's no guarantee he'll escape this alive. But if we detour to save him, we'll probably be costing millions of lives for the one. It's better one life for millions."

"You're not saying that-"

"He has to die if we're to stop the Commander."

Silence descended on the stairs momentarily.

"No, he doesn't." Sonic said firmly.

"Then what's your plan? Even if we rescue him, he'll be useless at the very least. He might not even recognize you. He could become a bigger burden." Mary countered.

"Do you even hear yourself? He's my friend! There's no way I'm letting _any_ of my friends die!" With that, Sonic rocketed up the stairs and left Mary staring at the shotgun he left where he had been standing a few seconds ago.

"All right Sonic…but what happens if they catch you too?" She whispered to herself, picking up the weapon and slowly ascending the stairs.

**XxXxXxXx**

"I hate that plan." Amy said instantly after the scientist was finished explaining.

"It's one of the only things we can do at this point."

"What happened to just taking a gun and threatening him?" Tails asked. "Not that I would do that…" He added quietly.

"He could use our threats against us." The scientist said. "Now are we going to do this, or not?"

"I don't-"

"Tyler?"

The three gathered in the hall spun around to see Mary, a gun held over one shoulder and a small bag full of the cure at her side. "What's going on?"

"What's it look like?" The scientist, who's name was apparently Tyler, said impatiently. "We're trying to come up with a plan to stop the Commander and save their friend at the same time."

"What've you got?" Mary asked.

"Nothing much." Tyler admitted. "Just-"

"You there!"

The four of them froze in place as footsteps sounded down the hall. Tyler slowly turned to see the Commander himself walking towards them.

"Sir, they escaped! Mary and I managed to catch them!" the scientist said, not missing a beat. Mary grabbed Amy's wrist and Tails' ear roughly.

"Ow!" Tails protested. "What are you doing? Let me go!"

"No doubt trying to save your friend, aren't you?" The Commander sneered. "Bring them to the lab. I think they should see this, because they're next."

Mary's grip momentarily got tighter. "Yes, sir!" She quickly recovered and said clearly. "Move!" She hissed to the prisoners.

Amy locked eye contact with Tyler for a split second. His gaze said, 'it's now or never.' If they didn't act soon, then all hope was lost.

They walked up three flights and turned down two halls, finally coming to a thick steel door that demanded identification. The Commander gave it what it requested and they entered the lab.

Instantly Tyler's eyes flicked over to the computer where he had been stationed last. Perfect. The major role in his part had been played; the station was clear. He proceeded to make his way over to it.

"_Shadow?_" Amy said in a hoarse whisper. Her voice grew stronger as she demanded, "What did you do to him?"

"I'll show you." The Commander gave her a terrifying smile and crossed over to the operation table, where Shadow was lying motionless save the irregular rising and falling of his chest.

Tyler waited until the Commander motioned for him to re-lower the arm before he did so. As it was lowering, he found the information he needed. It _was_ possible to do what he was planning. Tyler would have sighed in relief if the Commander wasn't standing a few feet away.

"Now we've gotten all we want out of him, save a few pieces of information that he absolutely refuses to give, like the name of the person who freed him from Prison Island. I assume you've known him long enough to know who did this?" The Commander asked, watching as the metal wand stationed itself a foot from Shadow's body.

"…What?" Tails asked.

"Didn't he ever tell you that he is the Ultimate Life Form?" The Commander snickered.

"No! Shadow? No way…that was …fifty? …Fifty years ago!" Amy said.

"So he's kept you ignorant. Very well played." The Commander reached up towards the panel on the robotic arm's side. "This is set to level fifteen out of twenty. fifteen times he's resisted telling me what I want to know, and is still resisting. Usually by now anyone would break and tell me all I know. I'm actually afraid to set this higher in case it kills him before we really put him to death. He's rested long enough, don't you think?" The Commander pressed a small button and Shadow's body jolted in the restraints set into the table. His eyes opened but they didn't focus on anything.

"Commander…no…please…" He muttered, "No more…."

"You've got some visitors." The Commander said darkly.

Shadow tilted his head towards the door, where Amy and Tails were. His unfocused eyes widened and momentarily fixed on them. Mary lowered her gaze to the ground and clutched her gun. There were others in the lab and they were armed…that was the only reason she didn't shoot.

"A…Amy? Tails…?"

"Shadow…" Amy trailed off. She glanced towards Tyler, who raised his eyebrows in an 'I can't do anything yet' sort of gesture.

"Now we're really wanting those answers." The Commander said. "And if you don't tell us, then I'm afraid we'll have to do what we're doing to you to your friends."

"No!" Shadow gasped. "No! Don't…don't hurt them! Y-you want me, you got me! …Don't hurt them!"

"Then tell us who rescued you from the island!"

"It… was Sonic!"

"Really." The Commander hissed. "On the security tapes, it did not show another hedgehog. Whoever rescued you was as much human as I am. Remember, this is set to level fifteen."

With that he flicked the switch, keeping his hand nearby it. Tyler shut his eyes tightly in frustration and sadness as once again the loud, tortured cries resumed. Mary clenched her teeth together and forced herself to remain staring towards the ground. Tails clutched Amy's arm and buried his face in her side while she could barely keep her knees from giving out.

The Commander switched the switch again and Shadow almost immeadentally stopped struggling, his eyes squeezed shut and his teeth barred in a snarl of pain as he took a shuddering breath. He was completely pale like he had seen a ghost.

"Up to level sixteen." The Commander hissed. "Not much further to go until twenty."

"L…let them go….and I'll tell you…" Shadow gasped.

"Oh, I'm afraid I can't do that."

"…I won't tell you…"

"That's your choice. I enjoy causing you the pain you caused a lot of people fifty years ago."

"…Obviously…"

"If you still have the strength to mock me I can adjust this so we can skip right up to level eighteen. How does that sound?" The Commander hissed, adjusting the machine.

"…Splendid. I'll …die before it's over…Death…I'll see Maria…again…"

"_Not after what you've done! You'll burn in Hell!_" The Commander spat, slamming the switch on.

"NO!" Amy shouted, but her shout of protest was lost in Shadow's scream of agony. After a few seconds his voice gave out and he could only gasp in-between whimpers of excruciating pain. He was shuddering as though he was immersed in ice water. "STOP!" Amy shouted, her eyes wide with horror. "_STOP_!"

"This is for killing them! He gets what he deserves!" The Commander had a look of insanity on his face. "This is justice!"

"_THIS 'JUSTICE' IS KILLING HIM!_" Amy screamed, pulling out of Tails' grip but failing to escape out of Mary's.

A strangled, undead sound ripped itself from Shadow's throat. He simply didn't have the will to struggle anymore. His irregular breathing was almost louder that Amy's shouts.

The Commander finally switched the switch off. Tyler gave Amy a glance and motioned to her with a hand gesture that said, 'more.'

More of …what? One wrong move and Shadow would die.

"Justice is killing him, huh?" The Commander walked around the table. "Then it's the perfect justice."

"What do you know about justice? You should be put to this torture too." Amy said harshly.

"I haven't killed hundreds." The Commander hissed.

"And he didn't either. The whole of GUN did…now you're the commander of this murdering group; this…this torturous, evil, scheming-"

The Commander slammed his fist onto the table next to Shadow's head. He didn't react in the slightest. "We may have killed certain criminals that are too dangerous to be kept alive. But we are not the group you speak of."

"Then how do you explain him?" Amy nodded towards Shadow, who had turned his head to the side muttering something inaudible.

"An experiment. He always has been and always will be. We've gotten all we need from him. He's not going to tell us any more. But believe me, we'll find out who set him free." The Commander sneered. "We'll dissect this lab rat. _Alive and conscious_. The professor who created him certainly went through a lot to create something that shouldn't even be alive. Now…this is for that young girl that was killed for him."

The Commander twisted the machine's dial to twenty, slapped the lever on and stepped back, like he didn't even care if Shadow stopped breathing halfway through the torture. The screams that were ripped from his throat were screams of the dying, slowly going to fade away into nothing…

…Tyler saw his chance. The Commander had stepped away from the arm; the one crucial movement for this to work. He quickly typed a few numbers into the keyboard and hit enter. The metal arm swung around and pointed directly at the Commander, sending him falling to the floor, screaming. Mary leapt up and pointed her gun at the scientists in the back. "You two…get on the floor."

Tyler hit the emergency shut off button on the computer and jumped up, heading straight for his boss. "Don't move, sir, or I will seriously hurt you."

"Amy, unstrap Shadow and use those belts to tie those scientists to a chair somewhere." Mary said, her gun still aimed directly at the scientists.

Amy went to work gently unstrapping Shadow's bonds, but he didn't even notice she was there. He twitched a few times, muttering something, hardly breathing.

"Tails, there should be a spare pair of handcuffs in one of the drawers in the back. Get them and bring them back here." Tyler commanded, planting his foot firmly in the middle of the Commander's back.

Within a minuet, both scientists and the Commander were tied back to back in chairs, locked in a large storage closet in the back. Mary turned her attention from them to Shadow almost immeadentally.

"Only time can tell." She sighed. "Until he wakes up there's nothing I can do."

"We need to get him out of here." Tails squeaked. "And we need to distribute the cure to everyone."

"I almost forgot about that." Amy admitted. "Once you have the cure…you can't get the virus again?"

"That's how it's been working." Mary said.

"What about the people that are completely taken over by the disease? They lose their minds…they don't know who they are after being cured." Tyler thought for a few seconds.

"It takes a total of a week to become fully infected if you just breathe in the virus, with the last stages happening dramatically. If you're cut by someone with the virus…it takes effect almost immeadentally. I think we can use this to our advantage." Mary said. "But for now we need to get out of here, all of us…somehow. And we need to find Sonic, because he should have been here by now."

"One thing at a time!" Tails sighed.

Tyler gently gathered up Shadow from the operating table. "Poor guy…he's shaking like he's stuck in a snowstorm but he feels like he's some sort of heater."

"Let's just get out of here." Amy said, picking up Mary's gun from where she had dropped it.

"There's a recovery section of this hallway that we can establish base in." Mary said. "It's safe and secure for the most part…if you lock it from the inside it's almost impossible to break in."

"Then that's where we're going." Amy opened the door and glanced around the hall. "It's clear. Let's go."

They quickly and cautiously made their way down the corridor, stopping at every tiny noise and corner until Mary said, "There…that's the room." She ran up ahead and entered a code, pulling the door open as everyone else caught up with her.

Inside was what looked to be some sort of doctor's office. A small counter was built into the far right corner, where large cases of equipment were stored. In the far left corner a small but comfortable looking bed was pressed up against a small table with a digital clock. Tyler lowered Shadow to the bed, where he almost immeadentally curled into a shuddering ball. Mary locked the door and they all began to relax.

"We need a plan." Tails said. "And a good one."

"I'm going back to the room we just exited from to find out what the Commander is really up to." Mary said instantly. "And if you ask me, we need to find Sonic and then get to work gathering up the cure."

"What will we do once we have it?" Tails asked.

"I don't know, probably something extremely dangerous." Mary exited the room before anyone could stop her.

**XxXxXxXx**

Sonic heard the screams but couldn't locate where they were coming from. He ran back and fourth down the hallway at least six times, trying to get closer to the sound. Before he could find the door the scream cut off into an abrupt silence. It was quiet. _Dead quiet_…

"Hang on, Shadow, come on…" Sonic rounded the corner for the third time and nearly ran into a scientist. He dodged around him and continued running, not caring anymore if he was spotted.

He rounded another corner and saw someone he desperately hoped to see enter a steel door. "Mary!" Sonic shouted just before she silently shut the blockade.

Mary backed up and gripped her shotgun tighter. But once she saw who was coming towards her she lowered it and growled, "Where have you been?"

"Trying to find the room. What happened? Did you save him? The last thing I heard was a scream and it got cut off by something…"

"He's fine. At least, I think he is." Mary bit her lip. "At the moment we can't necessarily do anything because we've got the fate of the world resting on our shoulders." She stepped into the room. "Come on, quickly. Before someone sees you."

Sonic entered the room and Mary shut the door behind him, heading for a closet in the back. Loud bangs seemed to be coming from it.

"We've got the Commander and a few of his scientists locked back here. Be on guard…take the gun just in case." Mary handed Sonic her gun and she flung open the closet door.

The Commander's left fist caught her along the head, sending her flying back into a corner. The two scientists who had been tied along with the Commander were also free and holding their weapons at the ready. "Drop it," One of them ordered. "or we'll shoot."

Sonic dropped the shotgun, casting Mary a concerned glance as he did. She picked herself off the floor and glared at the Commander. "How did you escape?"

"Let's just say some of use can also call upon the power of the Chaos Emeralds. I can't call upon much, but it was enough." The Commander sneered, tossing the green gem around in his hands. "Any last words?"

One of the scientists stepped forward, using his shoe to drag the gun Sonic had dropped towards him. They were now completely weaponless. Mary just fixed the Commander in a cold stare. "Just tell me why you don't want to spread the cure. Why you don't want to save hundreds of thousands of lives."

"How else could I rule the world?" The Commander shrugged. "How else could I say to everyone that I am the one to follow?"

"You're not one anyone should follow." Mary hissed. "Not even your own officers. I don't know how you conned them all into thinking they were on the winning side; the good side. How can you even live with yourself?"

The scientist picked up the fallen shotgun at his feet and handed it to the Commander, who slowly wrapped his finger around the trigger and aimed it square at Mary's head. "Anything else, traitor?"

"Killing me won't get you anywhere."

"You're right." The Commander admitted. "Killing you is pointless. I would be one less important worker."

His eyes flicked over to Sonic a second before the muzzle of the gun followed. A loud crack filled the air as the bullet left the barrel.

**XxXxXxXx**

Tyler sat back against the wall and sighed. "I can't believe we've been here for an hour and nothing has happened so far. We've been very lucky."

"I think we could have been more fortunate," Amy hissed. "Shadow's lucky to be alive."

Shadow's left fist clenched at his name but he didn't wake. He was still extremely pale, like he was having a terrible dream that was slowly becoming real. Amy sat on the edge of the bed he was lying in and said to Tails, "Why do you think he never told us anything? About what really happened?"

"The Commander thought it was to protect us." Tails sighed, sinking down opposite Tyler's wall.

"From the Commander? From the whole of GUN? What exacally? Everything?"

"More than likely."

"Why did we let Mary go alone?" Tyler growled for about the fifth time in the past ten minuets. "We should really go after her."

"We can't." Tails said.

"Shadow, can you hear me?" Amy tried again, knowing the outcome would still be the same.

"We can't just sit here…" Tyler protested.

"We're sort of forced to do that." Tails sighed.

"Then I'm going after Mary. Stay here…I'll be back shortly." Tyler headed to the door and opened it. But before he could go anywhere, Mary rushed in.

**XxXxXxXx**

"NO!" Mary screamed, but her scream came too late. One second her comrade was standing beside her…and the next he was slowly falling to the ground as the bullet pierced him.

One of the scientists grabbed her arm before she could drop down beside Sonic. "LET ME GO! _LET ME GO_! HAVEN'T YOU ALREADY DONE ENOUGH TO US?"

The Commander only chuckled, using the gun he was holding to roughly nudge Sonic. Blood was pouring out from underneath his hand as he pressed it to his side, coughing weakly. A moment of satisfaction spread through the Commander; satisfaction that he was in charge again and in control of their lives. He stashed the Chaos Emerald in his pocket and turned his attention to Mary.

"Unless you want to end up like him you'd better start cooperating."

"_With a bastard like you?_" Mary hissed. "I'd rather die!"

"Have it your way."

The Commander raised the gun, but as he shot the barrel of the gun jerked upwards sharply, the bullet landing in the roof above. It took him a moment to realize that Sonic was back on his feet, hand still pressed to his side, shouting, "You can't kill me that easily! I'm not dead yet!"

The Commander aimed the gun at him again. Before he could make any move, Sonic had grabbed the Chaos Emerald from his pocket and was making his way towards Mary.

A bullet bounced harmlessly off the Chaos-powered shield that the Emerald put up to protect its holder. Sonic began using the remaining energy in the Emerald to heal himself as Mary fought her way out of the reach of the GUN leader's scientists.

"Quickly, get out of here!" Sonic commanded. The Emerald was beginning to dull in color as a bright green light pulsed around him. "I'll catch up."

Mary nodded, turned and ran.

"AFTER HER!" The Commander roared, slamming the gun into the shield. It held tight and the damage was done to the weapon, making it crumple in on itself. Sonic's side wasn't healed quite healed yet, but it was enough to keep him alive until he got somewhere safe. He cut the shield off and ran towards the door, pain flaring in his side.

He was just in time to see Mary slam the protective door in the scientists' faces. At least she was safe. He turned to see the Commander rushing at him, crumpled gun raised as a club. Sonic knew if he caught up with him…he wouldn't stand a chance. He wasn't healed completely and he couldn't risk draining the Emerald of any more power.

The scientists caught sight of him and acted as a barrier in the middle of the hallway, just waiting. Sonic kept running, the pain in his side turning his vision brighter and then darker and brighter still.

"Nowhere to go now." The Commander laughed triumphantly. "Just give up and I might not kill you."

Sonic felt the last of his strength fade out of his legs and he tripped over what seemed like nothing, landing hard on his stomach. The Chaos Emerald skidded between the scientists and came to a stop against the metal door with a rather loud bang. Against all odds it opened briefly and Tyler stepped out, catching sight of what was happening directly outside. The two scientists were heading almost directly for him, but their eyes were fixed at something at his feet.

Tyler dropped down to his knees and scooped up the Emerald, flinging it back into the room where Tails managed to catch it awkwardly. After a murderous glare in the Commander's direction, Tyler hissed, "Don't think it ends here."

The door slammed on one of the scientists' legs with a loud crunch. The force of the door loosened a little and the scientist managed to escape before the door shut completely with a loud crash.

Sonic's nervous laugh of relief for his friends was lost in the scientist's scream of pain and horror as he collapsed against the wall, clutching his mangled leg. The Commander walked up to his prisoner and slammed the crumpled gun into the side of his head, sending him crashing into the wall.

"You…get him to the medics." The Commander shouted at the uninjured scientist. He nodded and helped his comrade get to his intact leg. They began making slow progress down the hall until the screams faded.

**XxXxXxXx**

The pain in Sonic's side had dulled down to a throb. He slowly became aware that there were bandages circling his body, keeping the worst of the bleeding at a minimum. There was a bright light somewhere…All he knew besides the light and the bandages was he was somewhere hard and cold.

"I know you can hear me." The Commander hissed.

The light rivaled that of the sun's and caused a slight pain in the back of his head, but Sonic forced his eyes open and directed at where the voice had come from. Sure enough, the Commander was standing nearby, an evil smile on his lips. "You came around faster than I thought. Maybe you'll last longer than your friend did."

A strange, robotic sound came from where the light was. Sonic squinted and barely made out the image of something positioned directly above him. His heart skipped a beat as he remembered the loud screams that had echoed down the halls…

"Yes, that's right. I can tell what you're thinking from the fear in your eyes." The Commander reached up towards the thing. "But don't worry…I won't set it as high at first. I'll slowly set it up one level at a time. They'll hear your screams and be forced to come out from their refuge."

A small hum came from the device and then the lightning-like agony.

**XxXxXxXx**

"Shadow, can you hear me? Please, wake up! Sonic's in trouble!" Amy pleaded, pressing the Chaos Emerald into his hand.

The effect was blinding. Shadow's fist clenched tightly over the Emerald and his eyes flared open and he drew in a breath like he had been drowning. He dropped the Emerald as soon as he realized where he was and tried to sit up.

"Take it easy, not many people can go through what you did and get up right away." Tyler said.

"Wh…where are we?" Shadow's eyes darted around the room like he expected the Commander to be lurking around. "What happened?"

"For the moment, we're safe. But we can't stay here forever. The Commander's got Sonic…" Mary trailed off. "he might be putting him through what you went through."

"We've got to stop him." Shadow managed to get to his feet, but his left leg gave out and Mary caught him.

"We will. You're in charge of using the Emerald to keep oncoming guards out of our way." Amy handed the Chaos Emerald back to him. "Let's go."

Tyler threw open the door to find…no one. He glanced both ways down the hall, but no one was lying in wait. It was almost too easy.

"Be very, very careful, all right?" He warned as everyone nervously made their way out of their safe zone. "Something tells me this is a trap…" He trailed off as something caught everyone's attention.

A long scream came from the right end of the hall, slowly rising in volume until it was cut off abruptly. It happened again. And again.

"Let's go!" Mary began walking as fast as she could down the hall with Shadow limping alongside her. Tyler and Tails went further ahead to make sure no one was coming.

"How far are we from the room?" Shadow gasped.

"Not far." Mary answered. The screams were louder now as they drew closer, but still abruptly cut off.

Tyler slammed his foot into a keypad and the door sprang open.

…A gunshot...

"_MARY!_" Shadow shouted.

Mary's eyes were wide as the bright red patch on her chest slowly expanded. She dropped to one knee and then completely went limp. Shadow collapsed next to her, squeezing her hand like it was a lifeline to keep her there with them. "MARY! _MARY!_ NO!"

"My aim was off." The Commander sneered. "I was aiming for you."

Shadow reached for the fallen Chaos Emerald and tried desperately to get Mary to hold onto it.

"No… Shadow…use it…Commander…kill…" She gasped, coughing up bright red blood like she had caught the virus. Shadow gripped the Chaos Emerald tightly and let a stream of green energy fly at the Commander, striking him in the neck and knocking him backwards where he lay, unmoving, on the ground.

"Mary…_Mary_…please, don't die." Shadow begged. "Please…Maria…"

Tails was clutching onto Amy's arm, like he was afraid if he let go that Mary really would die. Amy bowed her head, feeling her tears drip out of her eyes and onto the ground. They were losing a great warrior.

"Shadow, there's nothing you can do." Tyler said softly. He looked like he was in shock, not truly believing that his fellow colleague was really dead. "She's dead."

Footsteps were heard in the hall. Lots of them. An alarm began to blare as they approached the room. Shadow gripped the Chaos Emerald and stood up despite the fact he was still drained of power and faced the oncoming soldiers.

"CHAOS BLAST!"

A red-hot wave of fiery rage swept down the hall, destroying the soldiers that tired to advance and imprison the group. The alarm began to die away as it short-circuited, fire tracing its way along the exposed cables and wires in the walls.

Tails caught him as he began to fall backwards. "Shadow…that was incredible…"

"It doesn't matter. Someone get Sonic…we've got to get the cure out to everyone." Shadow pulled himself up again and made his way back into the room.

"Shads…? That you…?" Sonic muttered. "…what happened?..."

"We'll explain later. Come on, can you walk?" Tyler demanded.

"Here." Shadow dropped the Chaos Emerald next to Sonic's hand. A small flash of green covered his body once he touched it, giving him enough energy for the moment. The Emerald began to fade to a gray-green.

"What happened?" Sonic asked once he was on his feet again. "What happened to…" He trailed off.

"No time for that now." Shadow growled. "We've got to get the cure and head out of here."

**XxXxXxXx **

**…This story is really scaring the crap out of me now…**

**Review, por favor? **

**You know what I say next: No Flames, Flame me I release Iblis, blah blah blah Blah blah blah Hasta la Vista, Readers blah blah**

**Lordoftheghostking28**


	5. Chapter 5

** CHAPTER 5**

No one really kept track of the next few days. All they knew was that the area surrounding the GUN base was virtually free of the disease, thanks to their hard work and determination. They had been spreading out further and further, giving relief to those that had been infected and restoring them to their original state. They found out that if someone was fully infected with the virus that they could be brought back simply by being around someone or something from their past. The memories would resurface and they would slowly be brought back to their senses.

GUN elected a new Commander. Much to everyone's surprise he simply listed the previous Commander's death as 'unfortunate accident' and refused to change it in the slightest. He set his sights on helping Sonic, Shadow, Tails and Amy spread the cure around the most needed areas in the cities and restore the world.

"So far, so good." Amy announced one day, bringing out a small piece of paper and reading the print. "This continent was probably in most danger from the virus…but as it tried to spread overseas it mostly died out. It must have needed a host to be able to replicate itself and spread. But that doesn't mean it died out completely. Along the coastlines there's reports of the symptoms."

"We'll send the cure out there within today." Tyler promised, filling out a few forms and handing them to a passing scientist.

"Pretty soon it'll be like nothing happened at all." Tails said happily.

** XxXxXxXx**

Shadow was sitting alone on one of the highest points of the base, staring towards the sky where small blinking lights from aircraft and satellites flew by. There was a small thump from someone landing rather awkwardly on their feet behind him but he didn't turn.

"Hey, Shadow," Sonic came up next to him and sat down heavily. "what's up?"

Shadow didn't answer. He was still tracing a small red light across the sky.

"So…this has been bugging me for a while… why didn't you tell the Commander who released you from Prison Island?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Shadow growled. "Eggman's the professor's grandson. They'd grill him about what his grandfather had been doing, and there's a very good chance he doesn't know more than I do, possibly less. Besides, they'd be one genius more and things could have gone in a terrible direction."

Sonic nodded but Shadow didn't pay any attention. Silence once again reigned supreme over the quiet base.

"Why did Mary have to die? The Commander himself said he was aiming for me…" Shadow hissed. "If I had been standing where she was…"

"Shads, there's no telling if he intentionally meant to hit you or he just decided to shoot whoever he saw first," Sonic said. "besides, he got what was coming for him."

Shadow didn't say anything.

"Hey, relax. Because of what you've gone through and what you've did for us…the new Commander's going to clear your name. You'll finally be able to live without constant fear of being hunted down again."

"Really?"

"Of course… _If_ you can beat me." Sonic jumped off the rooftop and landed on the ground below. "Coming?"

"I believe the question is…" Shadow jumped off the rooftop and approached his rival. "…can _you_ beat _me_?" He started running towards the distance, flares from his boots lighting up the night.

"Count on it!" Sonic raced after him.

** XxXxXxXx**

** What an ending. Hey, I actually wrote a happy one! This makes a total of…five.**

_**Awesomeness**_**… **

** Anyway, I hope that was good enough for you guys. Read and Review and Favorite and all that jazz. See anywhere I need to make improvements on? Just tell me! Just don't Flame!**

** Flame me and I release Iblis!**

** Hasta la Vista, Readers!**

** Lordoftheghostking28 **


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